English

Confusion in the Church-Turing Thesis

Logic in Computer Science 2014-11-07 v2 Programming Languages

Abstract

The Church-Turing Thesis confuses numerical computations with symbolic computations. In particular, any model of computability in which equality is not definable, such as the lambda-models underpinning higher-order programming languages, is not equivalent to the Turing model. However, a modern combinatory calculus, the SF-calculus, can define equality of its closed normal forms, and so yields a model of computability that is equivalent to the Turing model. This has profound implications for programming language design.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1410.7103,
  title  = {Confusion in the Church-Turing Thesis},
  author = {Barry Jay and Jose Vergara},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1410.7103},
  year   = {2014}
}