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Philosopher

Alonzo Church

Logic

Alonzo Church lived from 14 June 1903 to 11 August 1995 and was an American mathematician, logician and philosopher who made major contributions to mathematical logic and the foundations of theoretical computer science; he is best known for the lambda calculus, the Church-Turing thesis, proving the unsolvability of the Entscheidungsproblem, or decision problem, the Frege-Church ontology, and the Church-Rosser theorem. Alongside his doctoral student Alan Turing, Church is considered one of the founders of computer science.

Facts
Birth YearSourced to the subject's own account
1903 1
Defining Moment
Proved the unsolvability of the Entscheidungsproblem in An Unsolvable Problem of Elementary Number Theory (1936), now regarded as a classic of logic and computability theory. 2
Birth DateSourced to the subject's own account
1903-06-14 1
Notable Publication
An Unsolvable Problem of Elementary Number Theory (1936) 2
Office HeldSourced to the subject's own account
Professor of Mathematics, Princeton University 1
Death YearSourced to the subject's own account
1995 1
Death DateSourced to the subject's own account
1995-08-11 1
BirthplaceSourced to the subject's own account
Washington, D.C., United States 1
Death PlaceSourced to the subject's own account
Hudson, Ohio, United States 1
Tradition
Mathematical logic (analytic tradition) 2
Classification
NationalitySourced to the subject's own account
United States 1
Connections

Influenced

Source Alan Turing (Wikipedia)
In the Other Atlases
Sources
1. Alonzo Church (Wikipedia)
Wikipedia
  • Lead sentence, Wikipedia article Alonzo Church
    Alonzo Church (June 14, 1903 - August 11, 1995) was an American computer scientist, mathematician, logician, and philosopher who made major contributions to mathematical logic and the foundations of theoretical computer science.
  • Infobox, birth_place field, Wikipedia article Alonzo Church
    birth_place = Washington, D.C., U.S.
  • Infobox, death_place field, Wikipedia article Alonzo Church
    death_place = Hudson, Ohio, U.S.
  • Infobox, workplaces field, Wikipedia article Alonzo Church
    workplaces = Princeton University (1929-67), UCLA (1967-95)
View the Source
2. Alonzo Church (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
  • Preamble, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry Church
    Alonzo Church (1903-1995) was a renowned mathematical logician, philosophical logician, philosopher, teacher and editor.
  • Body text, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry Church, discussion of the 1936 result
    The paper in which this result is presented, entitled “An Unsolvable Problem of Elementary Number Theory” (1936a), is a great classic of logic and computability theory.
View the Source
Alan Turing (Wikipedia)
WikipediaInfluenced: Alan Turing, Princeton section
Quote, Influenced: Alan Turing, Princeton section
From September 1936 to July 1938, Turing spent most of his time studying under Church at Princeton University, in the second year as a Jane Eliza Procter Visiting Fellow.
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