A little closer to finding what became Moses Schönfinkel (2021) | Hacker News Reader

A little closer to finding what became Moses Schönfinkel (2021)

writings.stephenwolfram.com

72 pointsRafelMri19 comments

https://clck.ru/38WW9M This is where you are supposed to search Soviet WWII personnel and I guess that some of these documents come from here.

https://clck.ru/38WWAQ However, this documents lists a different address for Grigorii Schonfinkel! "Садовая-Триумфальная, д. 2 кв. 12" (Sadovaya-Triumphalnaya 2, apt. 12)

What's interesting about it that it is usually addressed as "Тверская 30". Maybe not this building after all? Or there was a reason why it was addressed that way.

https://retromap.ru/1319377_55.769246,37.605020 - Looks like the address actually existed back then, and wasn't an alias of Tverskaya 30.

Yes, looks like Grigory's WWII documents came from pamyat-naroda

Also Yandex Archive started scanning/transcribing documents (even handwritten! powered by TrOCR model I guess?). I found there more documents on Grigori and left comments on the article itself.

I vividly remember our teacher at university explaining "currying" in Lambda calculus and afterwards consistenly calling it "Schönfinkeln", which I think only works in German but sounds much more beautiful than "currying" :-D

Ha, my German professor did that too (Tübingen!). Also, I've heard the English equivalent "Schönfinkeling" sometimes.

Indeed, Mike Sperber and Volker Klaeren in Tübingen :) What a small world it is

I recently attempted to make a reference implementation and walkthrough of Schönfinkel's original paper [1]. I found the English translation (by Stefan Bauer-Mengelberg) to be quite readable, highly recommend!

[1] https://github.com/planetlambert/combinator

I find it amazing how often in these kind of stories Goettingen and Hilbert come up in that time frame.

Anyone know of any good introductory resources on combinators? Stephen Wolfram's book seems too advanced for me.

That depends rather on your background. I found Schönfinkel's original paper to be very accessible. Perhaps you will too, if you know a little old-fashioned logic.

http://sshieh.web.wesleyan.edu/wescourses/2013f/388/e-texts/...

Quite frankly, the Wikipedia page should tell anyone everything they could want to know (for starters).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SKI_combinator_calculus

I took your advice, and you're right, it is very readable. Seeing it in its original context also helps me understand why a logician would want to invent it.

I read Lambda-Calculus and Combinators: An Introduction by J Roger Hindley as an undergraduate and found it was very accessible.

I would highly recommend To Mock a Mockingbird by Raymond Smullyan. It will also introduce you (if you are not already aware) to the wonderful world of Smullyan's books.

I would start with lambda calculus. If you pick the right intro video, they'll stray into combinators: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VQ382QG-y4 is very good.

Good story and analysis

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