Corrado Bhm

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Corrado Bhm
Born (1923-01-17)17 January 1923
Milan
Died 23 October 2017(2017-10-23) (aged 94)
Rome
Nationality Italian
Alma mater ETH Zrich
Scientific career
Fields Computer science
Institutions University of Rome "La Sapienza"
Doctoral advisor Eduard Stiefel
Paul Bernays
Doctoral students Giorgio Ausiello

Corrado Bhm (17 January 1923 23 October 2017) was a Professor Emeritus at the University of Rome "La Sapienza" and a computer scientist known especially for his contributions to the theory of structured programming, constructive mathematics, combinatory logic, lambda-calculus, and the semantics and implementation of functional programming languages.

Work[edit]

In his Ph.D. dissertation (in Mathematics, at ETH Zurich, 1951; published in 1954), Bhm describes for the first time a full meta-circular compiler, that is a translation mechanism of a programming language, written in that same language. His most influential contribution is the so-called structured program theorem, published in 1966 together with Giuseppe Jacopini. In lambda-calculus, he established an important separation theorem between normal forms. Together with Alessandro Berarducci, he demonstrated an isomorphism between the strictly-positive algebraic data types and the polymorphic lambda-terms, otherwise known as BhmBerarducci encoding.[1]

A special issue of Theoretical Computer Science was dedicated to him in 1993, on his 70th birthday. He is the recipient of the 2001 EATCS Award for a distinguished career in theoretical computer science.

Selected publications[edit]

  • C. Bhm, "Calculatrices digitales. Du dchiffrage des formules mathmatiques par la machine mme dans la conception du programme", Annali di Mat. pura e applicata, serie IV, tomo XXXVII, 151, 1954. PDF at ETH Zrich English translation 2016 by Peter Sestoft
  • C. Bhm, "On a family of Turing machines and the related programming language", ICC Bull., 3, 185194, July 1964.
    Introduced P, the first imperative language without GOTO to be proved Turing-complete.
  • C. Bhm, G. Jacopini, "Flow diagrams, Turing Machines and Languages with only Two Formation Rules", Comm. of the ACM, 9(5): 366371,1966.
  • C. Bhm, "Alcune propriet delle forme normali nel K calcolo", Pubbl. INAC, n. 696, Roma, 1968.
  • C. Bhm, A. Berarducci, "Automatic Synthesis of typed Lambda-programs on Term Algebras", Theoretical Computer Science, 39: 135154, 1985.
  • C. Bhm, "Functional Programming and Combinatory algebras", MFCS, Carlsbad, Czechoslovakia, eds M.P. Chytil, L. Janiga and V. Koubek, LNCS 324, 1426, 1988.

See also[edit]

References[edit]

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