Martin Davis (mathematician)

This page is on the mathematician. For the former tennis player see Martin Davis (tennis).

Martin Davis
Photo courtesy George M. Bergman
Born	1928 New York City
Nationality	American
Alma mater	Princeton University
Known for	Davis-Putnam algorithm DPLL algorithm
Scientific career
Institutions	New York University
Doctoral advisor	Alonzo Church

Martin David Davis, (born 1928, New York City) is an American mathematician, known for his work on Hilbert's tenth problem (Jackson 2008, p. 560). He received his Ph.D. from Princeton University in 1950, where his adviser was Alonzo Church (Jackson 2008, p. 560). He is Professor Emeritus at New York University. He is the co-inventor of the Davis-Putnam and the DPLL algorithms. He is a co-author, with Ron Sigal and Elaine J. Weyuker, of Computability, Complexity, and Languages, Second Edition: Fundamentals of Theoretical Computer Science, a textbook on the theory of computability. He is also known for his model of Post–Turing machines.

Biography

Davis's parents knew each other in Łódź, Poland, but did not marry until they met again in New York City (Jackson 2008, p. 560). Davis grew up in the Bronx, where his parents encouraged him to obtain a full education (Jackson 2008, p. 561).

References

• Jackson, Allyn (September 2007), "Interview with Martin Davis" (PDF), Notices of the American Mathematical Society, vol. 55, no. 5, Providence, RI: American Mathematical Society (published 2008), pp. 560–571, ISSN 0002-9920, OCLC 1480366 {{citation}}: Check date values in: |year= / |date= mismatch (help)

External links

• Martin Davis's website
• About Davis and a book by him
• Martin Davis at the Mathematics Genealogy Project