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Alexander Bumstead learns the Lambda Calculus

See the daily Blondie comic strip for October 3, 2013.
By tim finin at 2013-10-07 17:00 | LtU Forum | previous forum topic | next forum topic | other blogs | 5458 reads

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Neat

It's great to see lambda calculus in pop culture, even if in a somewhat negative light. :)

By Kalani at Tue, 2013-10-08 03:29 | login or register to post comments

Wikipedia Fail?

I'm conjecturing that cartoonist looked up "calculus" on Wikipedia and landed on the wrong page.

By mwand at Thu, 2013-10-10 00:40 | login or register to post comments

I'm thinking that they

I'm thinking that they were just looking for some math babble and that's what they found first. Unless the lambda calculus really is being taught in AP calculus these days...whoa.

Edit: did I really write conjecturing? Jet lag....

By Sean McDirmid at Thu, 2013-10-10 07:08 | login or register to post comments

Probably heard, not read; also Y combinator joke?

As others have in various forums that linked this cartoon, I'd suggest that the cartoonist probably *heard* about the lambda calculus from a friend or such: the "lambda extraction" looks too much like a mis-heard "lambda abstraction". (I think someone on LanguageLog suggested it could possibly refer to some obscure things from formal linguistics that are actually called the former, but this seems unlikely in context.)

While I'm here, does anyone else remember a bit from some comedian's show on Comedy Central in the late 80s/early 90s that referenced the Y combinator? There was enough else to the joke that it was clear that at least someone involved knew something about the Y combinator itself.

Ah, well: if it's not google-able yet, it will be soon enough ... .

By fruehr at Sun, 2013-11-03 22:25 | login or register to post comments

I have no idea what joke

I have no idea what joke this was. But I am dying to know!

By Ehud Lamm at Tue, 2013-11-05 07:12 | login or register to post comments