计算机器函数,Recursive Functions of Symbolic Expressions and Their Computation by Machine, Part I：（递归函数符号表...

Recursive Functions of Symbolic Expressions and Their Computation by Machine, Part I：(递归函数符号表达式及其计算的机器,我一部分)

Recursive Functions of Symb olic

Expressions and Their Computation by

Machine Part I

John McCarthy Massachusetts Institute of Technology Cambridge Mass

April

Intro duction

A programming system called LISP for LISt Pro cessor has b een develop ed

for the IBM computer by the Articial Intelligence group at MIT The

system was designed to facilitate exp eriments with a prop osed system called

the Advice Taker whereby a machine could b e instructed to handle declarative

as well as imp erative sentences and could exhibit common sense in carrying

out its instructions The original prop osal for the Advice Taker was made

in Novemb er The main requirement was a programming system for

manipulating expressions representing formalized declarative and imp erative

sentences so that the Advice Taker system could make deductions

In the course of its development the LISP system went through several

stages of simplication and eventually came to b e based on a scheme for rep

resenting the partial recursive functions of a certain class of symb olic expres

sions This representation is indep endent of the IBM computer or of any

other electronic computer and it now seems exp edient to exp ound the system

a

Putting this pap er in L T Xpartly supp orted by ARPA ONR grant N

E

to Stanford University where John McCarthy has b een since Copied with minor nota

tional changes from CACM April If you want the exact typ ography lo ok there Cur

rent address John McCarthy Computer Science Department Stanford CA email

jmccsstanfordedu URL h ttpwwwformalstanfordedujmc

by starting with the class of expressions called Sexpressions and the functions

called Sfunctions

In this article we rst describ e