In mathematics and computer science, Apply is a function that applies functions to arguments. It is central to programming languages derived from lambda calculus, such as LISP and Scheme, and also in functional languages. In particular, it has a role in the study of the denotational semantics of computer programs, because it is a continuous function on complete partial orders.
In category theory, Apply is important in Cartesian closed categories, (and thus, also in Topos theory), where it is a universal morphism, right adjoint to currying.
Read more about Apply: Programming, Universal Property, Topological Properties
Famous quotes containing the word apply:
“Children and savages use only nouns or names of things, which they convert into verbs, and apply to analogous mental acts.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“A wise architect observed that you could break the laws of architectural art provided you had mastered them first. That would apply to religion as well as to art. Ignorance of the past does not guarantee freedom from its imperfections.”
—Reinhold Niebuhr (1892–1971)
“When a bachelor of philosophy from the Antilles refuses to apply for certification as a teacher on the grounds of his color I say that philosophy has never saved anyone. When someone else strives and strains to prove to me that black men are as intelligent as white men I say that intelligence has never saved anyone: and that is true, for, if philosophy and intelligence are invoked to proclaim the equality of men, they have also been employed to justify the extermination of men.”
—Frantz Fanon (1925–1961)