Known for his work on Hilbert's tenth problem and as co-inventor of the Davis-Putnam and DPLL algorithms, Davis is an American mathematician. Born in New York City, he grew up in the Bronx, where his parents encouraged him to obtain a full education. He received his Ph.D. from Princeton University in 1950, where his adviser was Alonzo Church (Jackson 2008, p. 560). Davis has served as Professor Emeritus at New York University.
He is the co-inventor of the Davis-Putnam and the DPLL algorithms. Davis is also 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, also called recursion theory. Recursion theory is a branch of mathematical logic that originated in the 1930s with the study of computable functions and Turing degrees. The field has grown to include the study of generalized computability and definability. In these areas, recursion theory overlaps with proof theory and effective descriptive set theory.
He is also known for his model of Post–Turing machines.
