[[!toc]] #Q: How do you know that every term in the untyped lambda calculus has a fixed point?# A: That's easy: let `T` be an arbitrary term in the lambda calculus. If `T` has a fixed point, then there exists some `X` such that `X <~~> TX` (that's what it means to *have* a fixed point).
let L = \x. T (x x) in
let X = L L in
X ≡ L L ≡ (\x. T (x x)) L ~~> T (L L) ≡ T X
Please slow down and make sure that you understand what justified each
of the equalities in the last line.
#Q: How do you know that for any term `T`, `Y T` is a fixed point of `T`?#
A: Note that in the proof given in the previous answer, we chose `T`
and then set `X = L L = (\x. T (x x)) (\x. T (x x))`. If we abstract over
`T`, we get the Y combinator, `\T. (\x. T (x x)) (\x. T (x x))`. No matter
what argument `T` we feed `Y`, it returns some `X` that is a fixed point
of `T`, by the reasoning in the previous answer.
#Q: So if every term has a fixed point, even `Y` has fixed point.#
A: Right:
let Y = \T. (\x. T (x x)) (\x. T (x x)) in
Y Y ≡ \T. (\x. T (x x)) (\x. T (x x)) Y
~~> (\x. Y (x x)) (\x. Y (x x))
~~> Y ((\x. Y (x x)) (\x. Y (x x)))
~~> Y (Y ((\x. Y (x x)) (\x. Y (x x))))
~~> Y (Y (Y (...(Y (Y Y))...)))
#Q: Ouch! Stop hurting my brain.#
A: Is that a question?
Let's come at it from the direction of arithmetic. Recall that we
claimed that even `succ`---the function that added one to any
number---had a fixed point. How could there be an X such that X = X+1?
That would imply that
X <~~> succ X <~~> succ (succ X) <~~> succ (succ (succ (X))) <~~> succ (... (succ X)...)
In other words, the fixed point of `succ` is a term that is its own
successor. Let's just check that `X = succ X`:
let succ = \n s z. s (n s z) in
let X = (\x. succ (x x)) (\x. succ (x x)) in
succ X
≡ succ ( (\x. succ (x x)) (\x. succ (x x)) )
~~> succ (succ ( (\x. succ (x x)) (\x. succ (x x))))
≡ succ (succ X)
You should see the close similarity with `Y Y` here.
#Q. So `Y` applied to `succ` returns a number that is not finite!#
A. Yes! Let's see why it makes sense to think of `Y succ` as a Church
numeral:
[same definitions]
succ X
= (\n s z. s (n s z)) X
= \s z. s (X s z)
= succ (\s z. s (X s z)) ; using fixed-point reasoning
= \s z. s ([succ (\s z. s (X s z))] s z)
= \s z. s ([\s z. s ([succ (\s z. s (X s z))] s z)] s z)
= \s z. s (s (succ (\s z. s (X s z))))
So `succ X` looks like a numeral: it takes two arguments, `s` and `z`,
and returns a sequence of nested applications of `s`...
You should be able to prove that `add 2 (Y succ) <~~> Y succ`,
likewise for `mult`, `minus`, `pow`. What happens if we try `minus (Y
succ)(Y succ)`? What would you expect infinity minus infinity to be?
(Hint: choose your evaluation strategy so that you add two `s`s to the
first number for every `s` that you add to the second number.)
This is amazing, by the way: we're proving things about a term that
represents arithmetic infinity.
It's important to bear in mind the simplest term in question is not
infinite:
Y succ = (\f. (\x. f (x x)) (\x. f (x x))) (\n s z. s (n s z))
The way that infinity enters into the picture is that this term has
no normal form: no matter how many times we perform beta reduction,
there will always be an opportunity for more beta reduction. (Lather,
rinse, repeat!)