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Adrian Rezus Bibliographical, historical (and counter-factual) remarks on: On a theorem of Tarski, 1982 [Preprint 227, Mathematisch Instituut,

Utrecht; online: November 2012]


The Preprint Nr. 227 (Department of Mathematics, University of Utrecht, January 1982; actually dated: 9 October 1981, 35 pp.) is identical with the published version (in: Libertas Mathematica, redigit Constantin Corduneanu, Romanian American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Arlington Texas, tomus II, 1982, pp. 63--97), except for the following four-line note, added in print on proof-reading: Added in proof (September 6, 1982). David Meredith noticed, in correspondence, that the formula j := CCpCCqqCpCqCpq falsifies our Conjecture 25. This suggests that R-> [= the implicational fragment of R] may possess axiomatizations satisfying the hypotheses of Theorem 19 and / or Corollary 20, but does not alter the content of our discussion in 4. The proof of Tarskis Claim (1925) a special case of our Theorem 12; cf. also Remark 13 is contained in a previous preprint of the same Department (Nr. 150, on Singleton bases for the set of closed lambda-K-terms [etc.], dated April 1990 cf. the reference [19], in the text , a paper written actually in Geneva, sometime during 1979, and discarded later). Otherwise, the argument required in order to prove the original Tarski-statement is a mere exercise in lambda-calculus and occupies less than a page in print. Incidentally, this might be also the first example of application of (pure) lambda-calculus methods to (classical) logic, in the spirit of and beyond the so-called Curry-Howard correspondence. (See now my Beyond BHK, 1991, rev. 1993, online @ equivalences.org, under ditions / mathesis.) Avant la lettre, more or less, in as far Tarski is concerned, because the lambda-calculus was not yet invented as of 1925, and, except for Haskell B. Curry and, possibly, Schnfinkels friend and collaborator, Paul Bernays , nobody payed attention to Schnfinkels paper (1924) on combinators at the time. Even Alonzo Church confirmed later circa 1980 , in correspondence, that he was not aware of Schnfinkels finding while busy with writing up his lambda-papers, during the late twenties and the early thirties. An amazing historical detail, in retrospect, since as Curry once remembered Church was also a visitor scholar at Augusta, in Gttingen, around 19271928. Even worse, Church claimed (in correspondence with some other people) he did not read Freges Grundegesetze (Band 1, 1893 etc.), either; a place wherefrom he could have certainly extracted the pure lambda-[beta]-calculus quite a while before, even as an undergraduate student. The idea occurred actually to the young Russell (likely the only reader of Freges 1893 at the time), by the turn of the previous century, since, in two small manuscripts written in May 1903 and later (extant in the Russell Archives at McMaster [Hamilton, Ontario], on Functions and Objects, RA 230.030680, resp. Primitive Propositions for Functions, RA 230.030920, now published in Russells collected papers vol. 4, Foundations of Logic, pp. 4955), one can find something similar to the beta and the eta-rules (in a notation slightly different from Churchs and ours, with Fregean spiritus lenis for lambda-abstraction and a vertical bar for application). Yet Russell mixed the pure lambda-calculus setting (abstraction and application) with additional, genuine logical notions and went quicky into paradox, so he ultimately abandoned the Frege-based plan. The history repeated itself verbatim, without Frege, thirty years later, in 19311932 (cf. Churchs Princeton Lectures, First Term 19311932, Lecture Notes by Stephen C. Kleene, in the Church Archives, now at the Princeton University Library, and the corresponding papers published in the Annals of Mathematics, 19321933), on a similar pattern, and with the same effect, until Church decided to leave the genuine logic primitives out and managed to prove (together with his graduate student, J. Barkley Rosser) the now celebrated confluence result (the Church-Rosser theorem 1935) thus instating (type-free) lambda-[beta]-calculus on a safe basis. So, after all, the

lambda-calculus as we know it is actually born in 1935. As a matter of fact, Currys so-called Functionality Theory the first source for Curry-Howard emerged around 19341935, too. Whence Tarskis original way of proving his Claim (1925) without lambda-calculus and / or combinators thus looks, in retrospect, a bit intriguing. On this, see also my note Tarskis claim, thirty years later, Preprint, Nijmegen, October 1, 2010 (online @ equivalences.org, under ditions / mathesis). On closely related topics, this kind of (counter-factual) remarks might apply, mutatis mutandis, to other renown Gttinger, as well. As, for instance, to Paul Hertz and Gerhard Gentzen (I managed to cross-reference, once, their publications in detail: neither Hertz nor Gentzen ever referred to Freges Grundgesetze and both of them were quite meticulous on bibliographical matters, academic credits and so on), since the latter two could have found their Satzsystemen (19211929), resp. structural rules (19341935) even the famous Schnitt in Frege (1893), too, while still in high-school (Hertz was born in 1881 and Gentzen in 1909). On this account, Gentzen could have even profited of Freges ruminations on Regellogik , as a Wunderkind, at Kindergarten! Definitely, our (logical) grandfathers didnt spend too much time on reading each other Nijmegen, November 27, 2012

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