Knights of the Lambda Calculus

Semi-fictional hacking organization

The topic of this article may not meet Wikipedia's general notability guideline. Please help to demonstrate the notability of the topic by citing reliable secondary sources that are independent of the topic and provide significant coverage of it beyond a mere trivial mention. If notability cannot be shown, the article is likely to be merged, redirected, or deleted.
Find sources: "Knights of the Lambda Calculus" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (July 2024) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

|

The Knights of the Lambda Calculus' recursive emblem celebrates LISP's theoretical foundation, the lambda calculus. Y in the emblem refers to the fixed-point combinator and the reappearance of the picture in itself refers to recursion.

The Knights of the Lambda Calculus is a semi-fictional organization of expert Lisp and Scheme hackers. The name refers to the lambda calculus, a mathematical formalism invented by Alonzo Church, with which Lisp is intimately connected, and references the Knights Templar.[1]

There is no actual organization that goes by the name Knights of the Lambda Calculus; it mostly only exists as a hacker culture in-joke. The concept most likely originated at MIT. For example, in the Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs video lectures, Gerald Jay Sussman presents the audience with the button, saying they are now members of this special group. However, according to the Jargon File, a "well-known LISPer" has been known to give out buttons with Knights insignia on them, and some people have claimed to have membership in the Knights.[2]

## In popular culture

[edit]

A group that evolved from, or is similar to them, called The Knights of Eastern Calculus, makes a major appearance in the anime series Serial Experiments Lain, the logo of which is a reference to Freemasonry. References to MIT professors and other American computer scientists are prominent in Episode 9 of the series. At one point in the anime, Lain is seen with code displayed on her handheld device that appears to be Lisp.[3]

## References

[edit]

1. ^ This article is based on material taken from Knights+of+the+Lambda+Calculus at the Free On-line Dictionary of Computing prior to 1 November 2008 and incorporated under the "relicensing" terms of the GFDL, version 1.3 or later.
2. ^ Raymond, Eric. "Knights of the Lambda Calculus". The Jargon File. Retrieved 2015-04-01.
3. ^ "MIT Anime Club :: Appearance of MIT in Anime". Archived from the original on Jan 31, 2020.

This computer-programming-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.

|

* v
* t
* e

*[v]: View this template
*[t]: Discuss this template
*[e]: Edit this template