Jon Harrop wrote:

> To get the latter to act as the former
> does, you must beta expand (I think that is the correct technical term)

In computer science literature, alpha conversion is usually the renaming of
a bound variable (fun x -> T = fun y -> T[y/x] provided that y does not
occurr in T), beta _reduction_ is function application ((fun x -> T)(T') =
T[T'/x]) , and _eta_ expansion is the term rewriting you're looking for. 

I don't know why, maybe it's just the order in which they were enumerated
originarily, but where are gamma, delta, epsilon, zeta rewrite rules? :)

V.

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