Monday, June 23, 2003

Whose hands are on the FOCS cover?

FOCS
Cover Image Sometimes I learn interesting aspects of the history of theory from this weblog. On an old post on conference covers, Pekka Orponen left a comment saying that Alvy Ray Smith originally designed the FOCS cover back in 1973, when the conference was SWAT: Switching and Automata Theory. Here is Smith's story about the cover where he states the hands are his.

Smith had three papers in SWAT before moving into computer graphics and co-founding companies such as Pixar. So next time you are looking up a FOCS paper take a look at the hands of a one-time theorist who made a difference.

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