KC <kc1956@gmail.com> wrote:
Lambda abstraction was probably chosen in case someone found better abstractions; e.g. epsilon, delta, gamma, beta, alpha, ... :)
http://www-maths.swan.ac.uk/staff/jrh/papers/JRHHislamWeb.pdf Page 7: By the way, why did Church choose the notation "λ"? In [an unpublished letter to Harald Dickson, Church] stated clearly that it came from the notation "x̂" used for class-abstraction by Whitehead and Russell, by first modifying "x̂" to "∧ x" to distinguish functionabstraction from class-abstraction, and then changing "∧ " to "λ" for ease of printing. This origin was also reported in [Rosser. Highlights of the history of the lambda calculus. Annals of the History of Computing]. On the other hand, in his later years Church told two enquirers that the choice was more accidental: a symbol was needed and "λ" just happened to be chosen.) Tony. -- f.anthony.n.finch <dot@dotat.at> http://dotat.at/ Tyne, Dogger: Northwest becoming variable then east, 3 or 4, increasing 5 or 6 later. Slight or moderate. Showers, thundery later. Moderate or good.