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>Alan Kay has famously described Lisp as the “Maxwell’s equations of software”. He describes the revelation he experienced when, as a graduate student, he was s

>Alan Kay has famously described Lisp as the “Maxwell’s equations of software”. He describes the revelation he experienced when, as a graduate student, he was studying the LISP 1.5 Programmer’s Manual and realized that “the half page of code on the bottom of page 13… was Lisp in itself. These were “Maxwell’s Equations of Software!” This is the whole world of programming in a few lines that I can put my hand over.” https://michaelnielsen.org/ddi/lisp-as-the-maxwells-equations-of-software/ https://michaelnielsen.org/ddi/lisp-as-the-maxwells-equation...

tromp 4y ago
A much more concise Maxwell’s Equation of Software is the Binary Lambda Calculus self-interpreter (λ11)(λλλ1(λλλλ3(λ5(3(λ2(3(λλ3(λ1 2 3)))(4(λ4(λ3 1(2 1))))))(1(2(λ1 2))(λ4(λ4(λ2(1 4)))5))))(3 3)2)(λ1((λ1 1)(λ1 1))) as detailed in https://tromp.github.io/cl/Binary_lambda_calculus.html#Lambda_encoding https://tromp.github.io/cl/Binary_lambda_calculus.html#Lambd...
- nonrandomstring 4y ago
  In words; state in flux