Developed by Alonzo Church and Stephen Kleene to address the Computable Number problem. In the lambda calculus, is defined as the Abstraction Operator. Three theorems of lambda calculus are -conversion, -conversion, and -conversion.
See also Abstraction Operator, Computable Number
References
Penrose, R. The Emperor's New Mind: Concerning Computers, Minds, and the Laws of Physics.
Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, pp. 66-70, 1989.