[First RFTNL] Recursive Function Theory Newsletter

1972 - 1997

The first issue of the Recursive Function Theory Newsletter was mailed from Berkeley in April of 1972. Letters of support (there was no e-mail of course) were received from around the world, including one, enclosing a check, from Stephen Kleene himself (who explained that his current position of Dean at Wisconsin 'has left me with no time for current research, hence I have nothing to contribute for the time being').

The original aim, which was maintained for over twenty years, was to provide, for the increasingly far-flung recursion theoretic community, access to the latest developments in the subject. The ideals and enthusiasm behind the Newsletter were characteristic of that period. It was to be free, both to receive and to contribute to, essential for those from the then Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, P. R. of China, etc. It was to be informal, and denied to libraries (there were a number of requests), to encourage researchers to share information while fresh and in provisional form. It was to be open to contributors from all strands of the subject. It is due largely to the energy and perseverence of the various editors that by the time the functions of the Newsletter had been taken over electronically by Logic Eprints (now also gone) and the Computability Theory E-mailing List, no less than forty issues had been mailed (each, at least since the very earliest days, to over 200 'subscribers'), containing a total of nearly 400 research announcements and other items of news.

The Recursion Theoretic era, during which much of the technical and conceptual basis for 21st century Computability Theory was established, can be found reflected in the pages of the Newsletter.

Editors and Issues:

Barry Cooper and Dick Epstein, U.C. Berkeley

  1. April 1972 (Items 1 - 15)
  2. July 1972 (16 - 28)
  3. October 1972 (29 - 45)
  4. January 1973 (46 - 62, plus item 63: Supplement - "e-Semantics and Recursive Approximation to Classical Theories", James R. Geiser)
  5. April 1973 (64 - 73, plus Mailing List)

Len Sasso and Mark Finkelstein, U.C. Irvine

  1. July 1973 (74 - 94)
  2. October 1973 (95 - 101)
  3. January 1974 (102 - 117, plus Supplement - Bibliographies (the latter mis-labelled on cover No.5 instead of No.8) contributed by
    S. B. Cooper: "An Annotated Bibliography for the Structure of the Degrees below 0', with special reference to that of the Recursively Enumerable Degrees";
    J. N. Crossley, Sean O'Connor and Kaye Stacey: "Recursive Equivalence and Combinatorial Functors: A Bibliography";
    and S. G. Simpson: "Bibliography of Hyperdegrees".)

Barry Cooper, Len Smith and Stan Wainer, University of Leeds

  1. May 1975 (118 - 128)
  2. December 1975 (129 - 144)
  3. February 1976 (145 - 157)
  4. May 1976 (158 - 167, plus Supplement - "An Annotated Bibliography of Distributive Initial Segments of the Degrees of Unsolvability", Dick Epstein)
  5. September 1976 (168 - 174)
  6. December 1976 (175 - 179)
  7. March 1977 (180 - 192)
  8. August 1977 (193 - 197)
  9. November 1977 (198 - 206)
  10. April 1978 (207 - 217)
  11. July 1978 (218 - 221)
  12. December 1978 (Mailing List)

Barry Cooper, Len Smith, Stan Wainer (plus Carl H. Smith, N. American distribution)

  1. September 1979 (items 222 - 233)
  2. January 1980 (234 - 235)
  3. June 1980 (236 - 240)
  4. October 1980 (241 - 246)

Iraj Kalantari, Western Illinois University, Macomb (co-editors Carl Smith and Barry Cooper)

  1. January 1981 (247 - 258)
  2. April-May 1981 (259 - 267)
  3. August-September 1981 (268 - 271)
  4. August-September 1982 (272 - 279)
  5. April 1983 (280 - 291)
  6. October 1983 (292 - 331)
  7. February 1984 (332 - 339)
  8. August 1984 (340 - 346)
  9. July 1985 (347 - 350)
  10. January 1986 (351 - 357)
  11. June 1986 (358 - 361)
  12. February 1987 (362 - 368)
  13. February 1988 (369 - 372)
  14. July 1989 (373 - 377)
  15. January 1992 (378 - 384)

Iraj Kalantari (co-editors Steffen Lempp and Barry Cooper)

  1. April 1994 (385 - 387)
There was also a Special Issue: "Extended Abstracts of Short Talks of the 1982 Summer Institute on Recursion Theory held at Cornell University".

The past editors would like to acknowledge, with thanks, the financial contribution of readers to the Newsletter over the years. Particularly as a result of contributions during the mid-1980s, Iraj Kalantari has been able to pass on some remaining funds, which are being used to make the contents of past issues of the Newsletter available from this home page.

Comments to: Barry Cooper, last changed 5 October 2009.