Since nobody mentioned it, there is a very interesting paper among what are know the "lambda papers": http://library.readscheme.org/page1.html http://library.r

Since nobody mentioned it, there is a very interesting paper among what are know the "lambda papers": http://library.readscheme.org/page1.html http://library.readscheme.org/page1.html What you are looking for is answered in "The Art of the Interpreter, the Modularity Complex (Part Zero, One, and Two)", Steele and Sussman, MIT AI Lab Memo 453, May 1978. http://repository.readscheme.org/ftp/papers/ai-lab-pubs/AIM-453.pdf http://repository.readscheme.org/ftp/papers/ai-lab-pubs/AIM-... More LISP details can be obtained by the book "LISP in Small Pieces" by Christian Queinnec (1996), and an excellent description of the eval/apply functions can be found in "The Architecture of Symbolic Computers" by Peter M. Kogge, 1990. Btw: to satisfy my more or less latent pedantism: The second SICP author is called Abelson not Ebelson.