COMMENT ⊗   VALID 00002 PAGES
C REC  PAGE   DESCRIPTION
C00001 00001
C00002 00002	\input rwflet
C00005 ENDMK
C⊗;
\input rwflet
\rwflet
\address
TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN
\body

I am writing in behalf of Richard Beigel after explaining to him that
I would have to study recursive function theory for months to be ready to
read most of his work.  Reviewing his doctoral dissertation, of which I was
a reader, I am again struck by the number of original ideas, in a world where
one distinguished computer scientist considers the two-idea dissertation 
a rare accomplishment.  Beigel seems to have combined the paradigms of
oracle-based recursive function theory and of computational complexity
theory, and has spun off a variety of (apparently) novel and surprising
results, elegantly demonstrated, and many of them demonstrably the
strongest available results.  I may have seen more important dissertations,
probably Tarjan's and Earley's, but I can't recall one as rich in variety
of results.

I can not comment further on his subsequent work on this subject, as I do not 
know that literature.  He has, however, written a few papers that fall into
classical areas of computer science: sorting, searching, and algorithmic
information theory.  While not earth-shaking, they are solid and professional.

I met Richard as my teaching assistant when he was a junior in math at
Stanford.  He picked up the subject (computability theory) as he went
along, and was as good a TA as I have had in the past eight years.  He already
had the right instincts for simplicity and generality.  I considered him
a valued colleague.  He TAed for me again, and we have stayed in contact over the
years.  He is industrious and conscientious.  He has a first-rate mind; I can 
explain half-baked notions to him, and I seldom have to explain twice.

\closing
Sincerely,
Robert W. Floyd
\endletter
\end