Alonzo Church quotes

Alonzo Church was an American mathematician and logician, renowned for his contributions to mathematical logic and the foundations of computer science. The development of lambda calculus and the formulation of Church's thesis are among his most influential achievements. He played a pivotal role in shaping modern theories of computation and logic. Here are 5 of his quotes:

The only thing that might have annoyed some mathematicians was the presumption of assuming that maybe the axiom of choice could fail, and that we should look into contrary assumptions.

Alonzo Church

I tried reading Hilbert. Only his papers published in mathematical periodicals were available at the time. Anybody who has tried those knows they are very hard reading.

Alonzo Church

I was an undergraduate at Princeton, and I was pressed by the math department to go on to graduate school. Actually they gave me fellowships that paid my way, otherwise I would not have been able to continue.

Alonzo Church

Well it was not exactly a dissertation in logic, at least not the kind of logic you would find in Whitehead and Russell's Principia Mathematica for instance. It looked more like mathematics; no formalized language was used.

Alonzo Church