[plt-scheme] Why "lambda"?

Fine bit of history/legend. :)

On Tue, May 26, 2009 at 12:09 PM, Matthias Felleisen
<matthias at ccs.neu.edu> wrote:
>
>
> The story is that in the 10s and 20s, mathematicians and logicians used ^ as
> a notation for set abstraction, as in ^i : i is prime. Church used ^` (i.e.,
> a primed version of this symbol) for function abstraction, because functions
> are just sets with extra properties. The first type setter/secretary read it
> as λ and Church was fine with. True or not? I don't know but it's fun.
>
>
>
>
> On May 26, 2009, at 10:53 AM, Todd O'Bryan wrote:
>
>> After getting the lambda chair emails, I had to show it to my
>> students. (After flipping it horizontally, of course.)
>>
>> One of the students asked, "Why is it lambda and not some other Greek
>> letter?"
>>
>> Does anyone know if Church had anything in mind for lambda to stand
>> for, or was it just an arbitrary choice?
>>
>> Todd
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