Henry Gordon Rice (July 18, 1920 – April 14, 2003) was an American logician and mathematician best known as the author of

Rice's theorem In computability theory, Rice's theorem states that all non-trivial semantic properties of programs are undecidable. A semantic property is one about the program's behavior (for instance, does the program terminate for all inputs), unlike a synta ...

, which he proved in his doctoral dissertation of 1951 at

Syracuse University Syracuse University (informally 'Cuse or SU) is a Private university, private research university in Syracuse, New York. Established in 1870 with roots in the Methodist Episcopal Church, the university has been nonsectarian since 1920. Locate ...

with thesis advisor Paul C. Rosenbloom. Rice was also a Professor of Mathematics at the

University of New Hampshire The University of New Hampshire (UNH) is a public land-grant research university with its main campus in Durham, New Hampshire. It was founded and incorporated in 1866 as a land grant college in Hanover in connection with Dartmouth College, mo ...

. After 1960 he was employed by

Computer Sciences Corporation Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC) was an American multinational corporation that provided information technology (IT) services and professional services. On April 3, 2017, it merged with the Enterprise Services line of business of HP Ente ...

in El Segundo. Rice died on April 14, 2003, in

Davis, California Davis is the most populous city in Yolo County, California. Located in the Sacramento Valley region of Northern California, the city had a population of 66,850 in 2020, not including the on-campus population of the University of California, Da ...

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* 1920 births 2003 deaths Syracuse University alumni 20th-century American mathematicians 21st-century American mathematicians American logicians Mathematicians from New York (state) {{US-mathematician-stub