It’s birds all the way down: Fun Introduction to Lambda Calculus
summary
Live-coded lambda calculus in plain JavaScript: booleans as functions (returns first/second), Church numerals for 0,1,2,..., concrete successor, addition, multiplication (2×3 → 6), exponentiation (2^3 → 8), and a predecessor via pair-iteration so subtraction works. Implemented logical ops (and/or/not), comparisons (<=, =, >) and the Y combinator for recursion, then translated everything into combinators and showed it reduces to SK combinator calculus. All examples run in the editor with console output, showing the approach is practical and demonstrably working.
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chapters (10)
- 0:00Introduction to logic
- 2:27Lambda calculus basics
- 3:43Working with expressions
- 8:44Boolean and numeric logic
- 15:21Arithmetic operations
- 20:16Pairs and subtraction
- 26:34Operators and control flow
- 36:47Combinators and birds
- 41:21SK calculus
- 44:03Conclusion and Q&A
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