Church, Alonzo

(born June 14, 1903, Washington, D.C., U.S.—died Aug. 11, 1995, Hudson, Ohio) U.S. mathematician. He earned a Ph.D. from Princeton University. His contributions to number theory and the theories of algorithms and computability laid the foundations of computer science. The rule known as Church's theorem or Church's thesis (proposed independently by Alan M. Turing) states that only recursive functions can be calculated mechanically and implies that arithmetic procedures cannot be used to decide the consistency of statements formulated in accordance with the laws of arithmetic. He wrote the standard textbook Introduction to Mathematical Logic (1956) and helped found the Journal of Symbolic Logic, which he edited until 1979.

Church, Alonzo (1903– ) mathematician/philosopher; born in Washington, D.C. A professor of philosophy and mathematics at the University of California: Los Angeles (1967), he was author of Introduction of Mathematical Logic. He was editor of the Journal of Symbolic Logic (1936–79) and a member of the National Academy of Sciences.

Church, Alonzo - Alonzo Church

Church, Alonzo

Born June 14, 1903, in Washington, D.C. American logician and mathematician.

Church was a professor at Princeton University from 1947 to 1967, when he became a professor of mathematics and philosophy at the University of California at Los Angeles.

Church’s works deal with various branches of logic. He developed the notion of separating the concept of function from that of set. In 1936 he advanced the fundamental hypothesis of the theory of computable functions; now known as Church’s thesis, it states that every effectively computable function is general recursive (seeRECURSIVE FUNCTION). In 1935, Church adduced an example of an undecidable queue problem, and in 1936 he proved that the decision problem for predicate calculus is unsolvable. These results greatly influenced the development of mathematical logic. Church also made an important contribution to the development of combinatory logic and carried out research in logical semantics and modal logic.

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Church, Alonzo

Church, Alonzo

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