[plt-scheme] Re: Why "lambda"?

On May 27, 3:00 am, Stephen Bloch <sbl... at adelphi.edu> wrote:
> On May 26, 2009, at 3:43 PM, wooks wrote:
>
> > On May 26, 8:22 pm, Noel Welsh <noelwe... at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> ... you either
> >> have to change the world or learn to read it. One of these is
> >> practical.
>
> > I tend to go for a 3rd option. Put the textbook back on the shelf and
> > find one written in English.
>
> The problem with that is that English (like most natural human  
> languages) is notoriously unclear and ambiguous, and mathematicians  
> don't like things being unclear or ambiguous.  So they invent  
> specialized symbols and terms that mean EXACTLY what they're defined  
> to mean, no more and no less -- not in order to be unclear, but in  
> order to be clear.  It IS possible to write clear, precise  
> mathematics in the vernacular, without specialized symbols and terms  
> -- it was done for thousands of years -- but that style tends to be  
> so verbose that you forget what you were trying to prove by the time  
> you get to the end of it.
>
> Stephen Bloch
> sbl... at adelphi.edu
>

Actually to be fair. This does more or less answer the question I
asked.

It doesn't explain the Greek I see or the affinity CS people (who have
other notations) have for it, but I asked it originally of
Mathematicians.