$ labrun --exhaustive ·

Erasure is the only obstruction

Abstract

One terminating reduction, or all of them?

The Barendregt–Geuvers–Klop conjecture asks when weak normalization (some reduction halts) forces strong normalization (every reduction halts). We make it measurable: enumerate terms, reduce them every possible way, and hunt for the gap.

Experiment 01 · exhaustive

Conservation at scale

Every closed \lambda I-term up to size 24, reduced to a fixed point under all strategies. If the conjecture were going to break over λI, it would break here.

Experiment 02 · the gap

Separators: where WN and SN part ways

Allow erasure and the gap opens. We enumerate the terms that normalize one way and diverge another, and find the smallest.

Experiment 03 · shape

Reduction geometry of SN terms

For strongly-normalizing terms, the reduction graph is finite — but how big, how deep, how branchy? Two views of the same 83k-term sample.

reduction-graph node count
shortest vs longest reduction
Experiment 04 · detection

The perpetual law

A non-terminating term can hide its infinite path from a careless strategy. Barendregt's perpetual strategy F_\infty never misses it.

Experiment 05 · embedding

The ι-translation

If erasure is the obstruction, remove it. The ι-translation rewrites every term into the erasure-free fragment by keeping what it would have thrown away.

Experiment 06 · cost

Speedup: innermost vs outermost

When both strategies terminate, how much does redex order cost you? Almost always, eager (innermost) is the bargain.

reduction length by term size
outer/inner speedup factor
Experiment 07 · gallery

The reduction-graph zoo

α-quotiented reduction graphs for hand-picked small terms. ¬SN graphs carry a cycle; SN graphs don't.

Bonus experiment · tooling

crabcc × the Linux kernel

The reductions above were tractable because the engine's symbol layer is fast. Here it is pointed at the hardest target we had lying around: the Linux kernel.

symbols by kind
crabcc vs grep -rn · wall time (ms, log)
Context

Research notes

Where this lab sits in the literature. The conjecture is decades old; the contribution here is exhaustive, reproducible evidence.

Reproducibility

Methods & honest caveats