The bird tree

  • Authors:

  • Ralf Hinze

  • Affiliations:

  • Computing laboratory, university of oxford, wolfson building, parks road, oxford, ox1 3qd, england (e-mail: ralf.hinze@comlab.ox.ac.uk)

  • Venue:
  • Journal of Functional Programming
  • Year:
  • 2009

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Abstract

Sadly, Richard Bird is stepping down as the editor of the ‘Functional Pearls’ column. As a farewell present, I would like to dedicate a tree to him. A woody plant is appropriate for at least two reasons: Richard has been preoccupied with trees in many of his pearls, and where else would you find a bird's nest? Actually, there is a lot of room for nests, as the tree is infinite. Figure 1 displays the first five levels. The Bird tree, whose nodes are labelled with rational numbers, enjoys several remarkable properties.