What can you do in LISP that you can't do in Python

[Suchandra Thapa]

Michael Hudson <mwh at python.net> wrote:
>ssthapa at classes.cs.uchicago.edu () writes:
>
>>     Actually, I don't think this is quite true.  I believe this
>> holds only if the Church-Turing Thesis is true.  The original
>> Church-Turing thesis basically states that every effective
>> calculation can be done by a Turing machine.
>
>Can you come up with a sensible definition of computability that isn't
>"what can be computed by a turing machine?" (or one of its equivalents
>such as universal register machines or diophantine equations).

    Offhand, no.  I probably couldn't do it even if I spent a while, however
the fact that I or anyone else can't come up with such a definition doesn't
invalidate the possibility that if the C-T Thesis is not true, machines with
finite data and programs can carry out computations that a TM can't.


-- 
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	   		              |
Suchandra Thapa                       | "There are only two kinds of math . 
s-thapa-11 at NOSPAMalumni.uchicago.edu  | books. Those you cannot read beyond 
			              | the first sentence, and those you 
			              | can not read beyond the first page."
			              |                     -C.N. Yang
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