Moses Schönfinkel
Moses El'evich Schönfinkel | |
---|---|
Novorossiysk University | |
Known for | Combinatory logic Technique for binding arguments Bernays–Schönfinkel class |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Mathematics |
Institutions | University of Göttingen |
Moses Ilyich Schönfinkel (
Life
Moses Schönfinkel was born on
After he left Göttingen, Schönfinkel returned to Moscow. By 1927 he was reported to be mentally ill and in a sanatorium.[4][5] His later life was spent in poverty, and he died in Moscow some time in 1942 (aged 53–54). His papers were burned by his neighbors for heating.[5]
Work
Schönfinkel developed a formal system that avoided the use of
His paper also showed that functions of two or more arguments could be replaced by functions taking a single argument.[6][7][8] This replacement mechanism simplifies work in both combinatory logic and lambda calculus and would later be called currying, after Haskell Curry. While Curry attributed the concept to Schönfinkel, it had already been used by Frege[9] (an example of Stigler's law).
The complete known published output of Schönfinkel consists of just two papers: his 1924 On the Building Blocks of Mathematical Logic, and another, 31-page paper written in 1927 and published 1928, coauthored with Paul Bernays, entitled Zum Entscheidungsproblem der mathematischen Logik (On the Decision Problem of Mathematical Logic).
Publications
- Schönfinkel, Moses (1924). "Über die Bausteine der mathematischen Logik" (PDF). Mathematische Annalen (in German). 92 (3–4): 305–316. S2CID 118507515.
English translation: Schönfinkel (1967)
- Schönfinkel, Moses (1967) [1924]. OCLC 503886453.
- S2CID 122312654.
See also
Further reading
- Cardone, Felice; Hindley, J. Roger (2006), "History of Lambda-calculus and Combinatory Logic", in Gabbay, Dov M.; Woods, John (eds.), Handbook of the History of Logic, vol. 5, Elsevier
- Curry, Haskell (November 1927), Notes on Schönfinkel, 271128A (T271128A), Curry archives.[permanent dead link]
- Kline, G.L.; Anovskaa, S. A. (1951). "Review of Foundations of mathematics and mathematical logic by S. A. Yanovskaya". S2CID 119004002.
- S2CID 43352033.
- Slonneger, Kenneth; Kurtz, Barry L. (1995), Formal Syntax and Semantics of Programming Languages
- S2CID 14124601. (Reprinted lecture notes from 1967.)
- ISBN 978-1-57955-044-8)
References
- ^ Wolfram 2020.
- ^ Wolfram 2021a.
- ^ Cardone & Hindley 2006.
- ^ a b c Curry 1927.
- ^ a b c Kline & Anovskaa 1951.
- ^ Strachey 2000, There is a device originated by Schönfinkel, for reducing operators with several operands to the successive application of single operand operators..
- ^ Reynolds 1998, In the last line we have used a trick called Currying (after the logician H. Curry) to solve the problem of introducing a binary operation into a language where all functions must accept a single argument. (The referee comments that although "Currying" is tastier, "Schönfinkeling" might be more accurate.).
- ^ Slonneger & Kurtz 1995, p. 144.
- ^ Willard Van Orman Quine: Introduction to "Bausteine der mathematischen Logik" (Schönfinkel (1967))
External links
Media related to Moses Schönfinkel at Wikimedia Commons
- Wolfram, Stephen. Combinators: 100-Year Celebration. Wolfram Physics Project on YouTube. Retrieved 26 September 2023.
- arXiv:2108.08707. Retrieved 26 September 2023.
Biographical information
- Wolfram, Stephen (29 March 2021). "A Little Closer to Finding What Became of Moses Schönfinkel, Inventor of Combinators". Retrieved 26 September 2023.
Continuation