A Talk by pranav.ashok, Sachin Krishnan at

Lambda calculus is a formal mathematical system which can simulate any physically realizable model of computation. This talk will be a participative introduction to λ-calculus.

Lambda calculus is a formal system in mathematical logic and computer science for expressing computation by way of variable binding and substitution [1]. It can be considered the smallest universal programming language. That is, any computable function can be evaluated in the context of λ-calculus and evaluating programs in the language consists of a single transformation rule [2].

The talk will begin with an introduction to the syntax of λ-calculus followed by the substitution rule. We will then delve into Church numerals, develop an intuition of how numbers are expressed as λ-expressions, and then move onto defining the expressions for the arithmetic operations successor, +, *, ^ and so on. If the audience is interested and time permits, we shall also see how to define True, False, If-then-else and the comparison operators.

This is a beginner level talk and no background in theoretical computer science or college mathematics is needed.

[1] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lambda_calculus [2] - http://zeroturnaround.com/rebellabs/what-is-lambda-calculus-and-why-should-you-care/

Homepage - http://pranavashok.com