Summer of Math Exposition

Programming with Math: The Lambda Calculus

The Lambda Calculus is a tiny mathematical programming language that has the same computational power as any language you can dream of. In this video, we'll first explore this calculus before seeing how we can flesh it out into a functional programming language. After a brief tour of a simple type system, we'll see why the Lambda Calculus has some surprising applications in the field of mathematical logic, and how the implications of this relationship could alter the way that we study mathematics forever.

Analytics

7.1 Overall score*
42 Votes
13 Comments
Rank 4

Comments

This video is excellent. I hope that the creator produces more follow-up videos in the future explaining some of the ideas that were mentioned but not explored. For example, there was a scene that showed examples of the lambda calculus representing numbers, recursion, and tuples, without any explanation. I look forward to seeing more of this.

8.5

This was actually the first time that lambda calculus clicked for me. Your pacing was perfect. Full marks on clarity.

7.1

I really liked this video. I don’t have any background in Lambda Calculus, but I walked away from the video feeling like I had an understanding of the basics. A clear speaking voice and amazing animations made it easy to follow along. I also liked how the subject built up in a logical way, and had a very satisfying conclusion.

8

I think this video is interesting (and I enjoy the topic personally), but I think for a beginner it will be somewhat incomprehensible. Not entirely the creator's fault, it's a subtle and surprisingly deep subject. The bits that are easy to follow do not lead the watcher all the way to the profound idea about the proof of the infinitude of the primes being true BECAUSE it type checks. This is wild, and I think could have been explored much more deeply.

4.9

This was the video that made lambda calculus click for me! However, I think it would have been even more interesting to linger longer on the Curry-Howard correspondence and type theory in general

7.3

This video caught my attention through a well-planned mix of humor and teaching. I thought the creator did a great job with the graphics and keeping things simple. I also know stop-motion/animation is no joke, so I commend the creator for that as well.

7.5

Great and detailed explanation

8.1

this is so lovely. the way you recap new information periodically is so useful. thank you for your work

9

I really like this video in the following reasons: The screen is clean, no extra texts; The animations are smooth and express effectively the purpose; The story is clear and everyone can follow the steps; I learned about the notation of the Lambda Calculus, which was a bit too scaring for me before.

9

motivation 8/10 clarity 8/10 novelty 8/10 memorability 8/10

6.6

You're giving me flashbacks to when I tried to learn Haskell. F**k you 9/10 (can I swear? I'm not sure so I'll be safe)

8.7

I think I did learn something coming out of the video about lambda calculus in terms of the basics as I've seen the term floating around, but no one really did explained it well. I think the authors have done a good job just putting the ideas down and explaining it with simple, yet elegant animations and explaining some use cases. Perhaps, a discussion of the more complex functional programming languages of the modern day would be a next step?

7.1

The video is much better than most other math videos. The explenation is followable and almost as good as a typical 3b1b video in my opinion. The only thing I missed was a breakdown of actual code like you showed at the end concerning infinite primes, that would have been very interesting

7