His revolutionary idea? Before “computer science” was even a field, Church invented the lambda calculus (λ-calculus)—an elegant, abstract system for expressing computation through pure mathematical functions. In 1936, he used it to prove that no universal algorithm could ever decide the truth of all mathematical statements, solving Hilbert’s famous Entscheidungsproblem in the negative. This became known as Church’s Theorem, and it revealed something profound: there are hard limits to what any machine can compute.
That same year, Church articulated what we now call the Church–Turing thesis: any problem that can be “effectively calculated” can be computed by a Turing machine—or equivalently, expressed in lambda calculus. When Alan Turing learned of Church’s work, he traveled to Princeton to study under him. Together, they proved their two seemingly different models of computation were fundamentally equivalent, laying the bedrock for all future computer science.
Alonzo Church was born on June 14, 1903, in Washington, D.C., where his father, Samuel Robbins Church, was a justice of the peace [ 5 ] and the judge of the Municipal Court for the District of Columbia. He was the grandson of Alonzo Webster Church (1829−1909), United States Senate Librarian from 1881 to 1901, and great-grandson of Alonzo Church, a professor of Mathematics and Astronomy and 6th President of the University of Georgia. [ 6 ] As a young boy, Church was partially blinded by an air gun accident. [ 7 ] The family later moved to Virginia after his father lost his position at the university because of failing eyesight. With help from his uncle, also named Alonzo Church, the son attended the private Ridgefield School for Boys in Ridgefield, Connecticut. [ 8 ] After graduating from Ridgefield in 1920, Church attended Princeton University, where he was an exceptional student. He published his first paper on Lorentz transformations [ 9 ] in 1924 and graduated the same year with a degree in mathematics. He stayed at Princeton for graduate work, earning a Ph. D. in mathematics in three years under Oswald Veblen.
He married Mary Julia Kuczinski in 1925. The couple had three children: Alonzo Jr. (1929), Mary Ann (1933), and Mildred (1938).
After receiving his Ph.D., he taught briefly as an instructor at the University of Chicago. [ 10 ] He received a two-year National Research Fellowship that enabled him to attend Harvard University in 1927–1928, and the University of Göttingen and University of Amsterdam the following year.
