[cyrus_]

I think if anything should be seen as analagous to Maxwell's equations, it should be the lambda calculus. It is actually a piece of mathematics, rather than the mess of compiler internals this article describes.

[tromp]

Agreed. The Binary lambda calculus

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_lambda_calculus

features this universal machine:

    (λ11)(λλλ1(λλλλ3(λ5(3(λ2(3(λλ3(λ123)))(4(λ4(λ31(21))))))
    (1(2(λ12))(λ4(λ4(λ2(14)))5))))(33)2)(λ1((λ11)(λ11)))

which parses a binary-encoded lambda term and evaluates its application to the remaining input bits.