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@make(letterhead,Phone"497-4430",Who"John McCarthy",Logo,Old,Department CSD)
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@begin(address)
Professor Duncan A. Buell, Chairman
Search Coordination Committee
Department of Computer Science
102 Nicholson
Louisiana State University
Baton Rouge, Louisiana  70803
@end(address)
@greeting(Dear Professor Buell)
@begin(body)
	Martin Davis is one of the best known logicians in America,
and I am not qualified to evaluate his logical work.  However, I
know something of his work in areas touching computing and
artificial intelligence.

	He and Hilary Putnam wrote one of the first theorem proving
programs for predicate calculus, and the Davis-Putnam algorithm was
the benchmark in this field for a number of years.  More recently,
he has been developing a theory of adequate test data for program
debugging that uses the Chaitin-Kolmogorov theory of complexity.  Such
work requires someone of Davis's logical and mathematical knowledge
and sophistication.

	A third recent contribution was in clarifying the mathematical
structure of non-monotonic reasoning.  He was the first
mathematical logician to take an interest in these problems,
and his recent article in @p[Artificial Intelligence] was an
island of rigor and clarity in a sea of intuitive ideas.
Now the topic is becoming relatively popular among logicians.

	His recent paper at the International Joint Conference
on Artificial Intelligence about the notion of "obvious deduction"
was done while he was visiting the Stanford Artificial Intelligence
Laboratory and will prove an important tool in making interactive
theorem provers practical.

	Davis is now finishing a 700 page book on the theory of
computation including computability, formal languages and complexity
theory.

	On the basis of this work and other contacts, I think Martin
Davis has many years of creative and productive work ahead of him.
I also believe that his interests and leadership are broad enough to
lead a Computer Science Department.
@end(body)
Sincerely,




John McCarthy
Professor of Computer Science