Editing Jim Gray (computer scientist)

{{Short description|American computer scientist}}
{{Infobox person
| name        = Jim Gray 
| image       = Jim Gray Computing in the 21st Century 2006.jpg
| alt         = 
| caption     = Gray in 2006
| birth_name  = James Nicholas Gray
| birth_date  = {{birth date|1944|1|12}}<ref name="wisc">{{cite web | title= DeWitt Undergraduate CS Scholarship: Dr. James Gray | url= http://www.cs.wisc.edu/awards/scholarships.dewitt.html | publisher= [[University of Wisconsin–Madison]] | access-date= 2010-01-18 | archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20100223013949/http://www.cs.wisc.edu/awards/scholarships.dewitt.html | archive-date= 2010-02-23 | url-status= dead }}</ref>
| birth_place = [[San Francisco]], California<ref name="oralhist">Oral History Interview with Jim Gray [purl.umn.edu/107339 Synopsis] at [[Charles Babbage Institute]], [[University of Minnesota]]. 3 January 2002. Retrieved 2010-01-19.</ref>
| disappeared_date   = {{Disappeared date and age|2007|1|28|1944|1|12}}
| disappeared_place  = Waters near San Francisco
| disappeared_status = [[Declared death in absentia|Declared dead ''in absentia'']]<br />{{Death date and age|2012|1|28|1944|1|12}}
| nationality = American
| spouse      = Loretta (divorced), Donna&nbsp;Carnes (widowed)
| children    = 1 (daughter)
| occupation  = Computer scientist
| education   = [[University of California, Berkeley]] ([[Bachelor of Science|BS]], [[Master of Science|MS]], [[Doctor of Philosophy|PhD]])<br>[[New York University]]
| employer    = {{Plainlist|
* [[IBM]]
* [[Tandem Computers]]
* [[Digital Equipment Corporation|DEC]]
*  [[Microsoft]]}}
| known_for   = Work on [[database system|database]] and [[transaction processing]] systems
| awards      = [[Turing Award]] (1998)<ref name="turing">{{Cite journal | last1 = Gray | first1 = J. | doi = 10.1145/602382.602401 | title = What next?: A dozen information-technology research goals | journal = Journal of the ACM | volume = 50 | pages = 41–57 | year = 2003 | url = http://research.microsoft.com/pubs/68660/ms_tr_99_50_turingtalk.pdf| arxiv = cs/9911005| s2cid = 10336312 }} Jim Gray Turing Award lecture</ref><br>[[International Parallel and Distributed Processing Symposium#IEEE Computer Society Charles Babbage Award|IEEE Computer Society Charles Babbage Award]] (1998)
}}
'''James Nicholas Gray''' (1944 – [[declared dead in absentia]] 2012) was an American [[computer scientist]] who received the [[Turing Award]] in 1998 "for seminal contributions to [[database]] and [[transaction processing]] research and technical leadership in system implementation".<ref>{{cite news|last=Gray|first=Jim|title=Jim Gray - A.M. Turing Award Winner|year=1998|publisher=ACM|url=http://amturing.acm.org/award_winners/gray_3649936.cfm}}</ref>

==Early years and personal life==
Gray was born in [[San Francisco]], the second child of Ann Emma Sanbrailo, a teacher, and James Able Gray, who was in the [[U.S. Army]]; the family moved to [[Rome]], [[Italy]], where Gray spent most of the first three years of his life; he learned to speak [[Italian language|Italian]] before English. The family then moved to [[Virginia]], spending about four years there, until Gray's parents divorced, after which he returned to San Francisco with his mother. His father, an amateur inventor, patented a design for a ribbon cartridge for [[typewriter]]s that earned him a substantial royalty stream.<ref name="oralhist"/>

After being turned down for the [[Air Force Academy]] he entered the [[University of California, Berkeley]] as a freshman in 1961.  To help pay for college, he worked as a [[Cooperative education|co-op]] for [[General Dynamics]], where he learned to use a [[Monroe calculator]].  Discouraged by his chemistry grades, he left Berkeley for six months, returning after an experience in industry he later described as "dreadful".<ref name="oralhist"/> Gray earned his [[B.S.]] in engineering mathematics (Math and Statistics) in 1966.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.faircom.com/ace/enl_29_jimgray_t.php|title=Biography of Dr. Jim Gray|work=faircom.com|access-date=2 July 2015|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150703072957/http://www.faircom.com/ace/enl_29_jimgray_t.php|archive-date=3 July 2015}}</ref>

After marrying, Gray moved with his wife Loretta to [[New Jersey]], his wife's home state; she worked as a teacher and he worked at [[Bell Labs]] on a digital simulation that was to be part of [[Multics]]. At Bell, he worked three days a week and spent two days as a Master's student at [[New York University]]'s [[Courant Institute]]. After a year they traveled for several months before settling again in Berkeley, where Gray entered graduate school with [[Michael A. Harrison]] as his advisor. In 1969 he received his [[Doctor of Philosophy|Ph.D.]] in [[programming language]]s, then did two years of [[Postdoctoral researcher|postdoctoral work]] for IBM.<ref name="oralhist"/>

While at Berkeley, Gray and Loretta had a daughter; they were later divorced. His second wife was Donna Carnes.

==Research==
Gray pursued his career primarily working as a researcher and [[software design]]er at a number of industrial companies, including [[IBM]], [[Tandem Computers]], and [[Digital Equipment Corporation|DEC]]. He joined [[Microsoft]] in 1995 and was a Technical Fellow for the company{{efn|''See'' <ref name="wisc"/><ref>''Transaction Processing: Concepts and Techniques'' (with Andreas Reuter) (1993). {{ISBN|1-55860-190-2}}.</ref><ref>''The Benchmark Handbook: For Database and Transaction Processing Systems'' (1991). [[Morgan Kaufmann]]. {{ISBN|978-1-55860-159-8}}.</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Saade |first1=E. |title=Search survey for S/V Tenacious |doi=10.1145/1379387.1379409 |journal=ACM SIGMOD Record |volume=37 |issue=2 |pages=70–77 |year=2008  |s2cid=15504271 }}</ref><ref name="Searching for Jim Gray">{{Cite journal | last1 = Hellerstein | first1 = J. M. | last2 = Tennenhouse | first2 = D. L. | doi = 10.1145/1965724.1965744 | title = Searching for Jim Gray | journal = Communications of the ACM | volume = 54 | issue = 7 | pages = 77 | year = 2011 | doi-access =  | s2cid = 5608003 }}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal | last1 = Crawford | first1 = D. | title = Jim Gray | doi = 10.1145/1400214.1400216 | journal = Communications of the ACM | volume = 51 | issue = 11 | pages = 7 | year = 2008 | doi-access = free }}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal | last1 = Szalay | first1 = A. S. | title = Jim Gray, astronomer | doi = 10.1145/1400214.1400231 | journal = Communications of the ACM | volume = 51 | issue = 11 | pages = 58–65 | year = 2008 | s2cid = 1897698 }}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal | last1 = Gray | first1 = J. | title = Technical perspectiveThe Polaris Tableau system | doi = 10.1145/1400214.1400233 | journal = Communications of the ACM | volume = 51 | issue = 11 | pages = 74 | year = 2008 | s2cid = 43390262 }}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal | last1 = Stonebraker | first1 = M.| author-link1 = Michael Stonebraker | last2 = Dewitt | first2 = D. J. | author-link2 = David DeWitt| doi = 10.1145/1400214.1400230 | title = A tribute to Jim Gray | journal = Communications of the ACM | volume = 51 | issue = 11 | pages = 54 | year = 2008 | s2cid = 30060029}}</ref>|name=technical_fellow}} until he was lost at sea in 2007.<ref>{{cite magazine| url=http://archive.wired.com/techbiz/people/magazine/15-08/ff_jimgray?currentPage=all| title=Inside the High Tech Hunt for a Missing Silicon Valley Legend|date= 24 Jul 2007|author= Steve Silberman|access-date= 3 Feb 2015| magazine= Wired}}</ref>

Gray contributed to several major database and transaction processing systems. [[IBM System R|IBM's System R]] was the precursor of the [[SQL]] relational databases that have become a standard throughout the world. For Microsoft, he worked on [[TerraServer-USA]] and [[Sloan Digital Sky Survey#Data access|Skyserver]].

[[Roger Sippl]] described Gray as among the "technical gods in this industry", widely respected as a neutral arbiter on standards committees.<ref name="rdbmsgrowingandselling20070613">{{Cite interview |interviewer=Luanne Johnson |title=RDBMS Workshop: Growing and Selling |url=https://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/access/text/2013/05/102702567-05-01-acc.pdf |access-date=2025-05-30 |publisher=Computer History Museum |date=2007-06-13}}</ref> His best-known achievements include:
* [[ACID]], an acronym describing the requirements for reliable transaction processing and its software implementation
*[[Multiple granularity locking|Granular database locking]]<ref>{{Cite journal | last1 = Eswaran | first1 = K. P. | last2 = Gray | first2 = J. N. | last3 = Lorie | first3 = R. A. | last4 = Traiger | first4 = I. L. | title = The notions of consistency and predicate locks in a database system | doi = 10.1145/360363.360369 | journal = Communications of the ACM | volume = 19 | issue = 11 | pages = 624–633 | year = 1976 | s2cid = 12834534 | doi-access = free }}</ref>
* Two-tier transaction [[Commit (data management)|commit]] semantics
* The [[Five-minute rule]] for allocating storage
* [[OLAP cube]] operator for [[data warehouse|data warehousing]]
* Characterization of [[software bug]] types<ref>{{cite conference|last1=Gray|first1=Jim|title=Why do computers stop and what can be done about it?|conference=Symposium on Reliability in Distributed Software and Database Systems|year=1986}}</ref>

He assisted in developing [[Virtual Earth]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.sigmod.org/sigmod/record/issues/0303/Gray_SIGMOD_Interview_Final.pdf|title=Interview with Jim Gray for ACM SIGMOD Record, March 2003 as part of Distinguished Database Profiles|first=Marianne|last=Winslett|author-link=Marianne Winslett|website=sigmod.org|access-date=2007-02-14|archive-date=2009-11-06|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091106153532/http://www.sigmod.org/sigmod/record/issues/0303/Gray_SIGMOD_Interview_Final.pdf|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>[http://channel9.msdn.com/Showpost.aspx?postid=168181 Interview] on [[MSDN]] [[Channel 9 (discussion forum)|Channel 9]], Behind the Code, March 3, 2006</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.regdeveloper.co.uk/2006/05/30/jim_gray/|title=Deconstructing databases with Jim Gray|work=regdeveloper.co.uk}}</ref> He was also one of the co-founders of the [[Conference on Innovative Data Systems Research]].

==Disappearance==
[[File:Jim Gray on Tenacious 2006.jpg|thumb|Jim Gray on his yacht ''Tenacious'' in 2006|289x289px]]
Gray, an experienced sailor, owned a {{convert|40|foot|m}} sailboat. On January 28, 2007, he failed to return from a short solo trip to scatter his mother's ashes at the [[Farallon Islands]] near [[San Francisco]].<ref name="memoir">{{cite journal |first1=Gordon |last1=Bell |author1-link=Gordon Bell |author2-link=Leslie Lamport |first2=Leslie |last2=Lamport |author3-link=Butler Lampson |first3=Butler W. |last3=Lampson |title=James N. Gray |journal=Biographical Memoirs |date=2013 |citeseerx=10.1.1.369.4753 |publisher=National Academy of Sciences |location=Washington, DC }}</ref> The weather was clear, and no distress call was received, nor was any signal detected from the boat's automatic [[Emergency Position-Indicating Radio Beacon]].

A four-day [[United States Coast Guard|Coast Guard]] search using planes, helicopters, and boats found nothing.<ref name="sfgate">{{cite news | date = January 29, 2007 | url = http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/01/29/BAGB5NR0GL6.DTL | title = Coast Guard searches for missing SF boater: 63-year-old man failed to return from trip to Farallon Islands | work = [[San Francisco Chronicle]]}}</ref><ref name="sfgate2">{{cite news | date = January 30, 2007 | url = http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/01/30/BAGGTNR93G1.DTL&type=printable | title = Sea search for missing Microsoft scientist: No sign of S.F. man who set out alone for Farallon Islands in 40-foot sailboat | work = [[San Francisco Chronicle]] | first = Jim | last = Doyle | access-date = January 30, 2007 | archive-date = June 9, 2012 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20120609102308/http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/01/30/BAGGTNR93G1.DTL&type=printable | url-status = dead }}</ref><ref name="sfgate4">{{cite news | date = January 31, 2007 | url = http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/01/31/BAGTONS9084.DTL&type=printable | title = Search for missing sailor extends to Humboldt | work = [[San Francisco Chronicle]] | first1 = Tanya | last1 = Schevitz | first2 = Steve | last2 = Rubenstein | access-date = January 31, 2007 | archive-date = June 9, 2012 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20120609102346/http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/01/31/BAGTONS9084.DTL&type=printable | url-status = dead }}</ref><ref name="sfgate5">{{cite news | date = January 31, 2007 | url = http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/01/31/MNGPMNRVD137.DTL&type=printable | title = Vast search off coast for data wizard | work = [[San Francisco Chronicle]] | first1 = Meredith | last1 = May | first2 = Jim | last2 = Doyle | access-date = January 31, 2007 | archive-date = June 9, 2012 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20120609102422/http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/01/31/MNGPMNRVD137.DTL&type=printable | url-status = dead }}</ref>
On February 1, 2007, the [[DigitalGlobe]] satellite scanned the area<ref name="nythafner">{{cite news |last=Hafner |first=Katie |author-link=Katie Hafner| date=February 3, 2007 |title=Silicon Valley's High-Tech Hunt for Colleague |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/03/technology/03search.html?ex=1328158800&en=e58764b50c8a4508&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss |access-date=May 6, 2010 |work=[[New York Times]]}}</ref> and the thousands of images were posted to [[Amazon Mechanical Turk]]. Students, colleagues, and friends of Gray, and computer scientists around the world formed a "Jim Gray Group" to study these images for clues. On February 16 this search was suspended,<ref>{{cite news|date=February 16, 2007|url=http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2007/02/16/state/n181516S21.DTL&hw=jim+gray&sn=001&sc=1000|title=Friends of missing computer scientist suspend search for him|work=[[San Francisco Chronicle]]|archive-url=https://archive.today/20070305093740/http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2007/02/16/state/n181516S21.DTL&hw=jim+gray&sn=001&sc=1000|archive-date=2007-03-05|url-status=dead}}</ref> and an underwater search using sophisticated equipment ended May 31.<ref name="Searching for Jim Gray"/><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.mturk.com/mturk/preview?groupId=J0XZ58STDWJZ5QY4F9M0|title=Amazon Mechanical Turk - All HITs|work=mturk.com|access-date=2 July 2015}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.openphi.net/tenacious/|title=Tenacious Search|work=openphi.net|access-date=2 July 2015|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150703024036/http://www.openphi.net/tenacious/|archive-date=3 July 2015}}</ref><ref>[http://www.helpfindjim.com/index.html Help Find Jim] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070927035110/http://www.helpfindjim.com/index.html |date=2007-09-27 }} Information to help locate Jim Gray</ref><ref>[http://www.helpfindjim.com/printposter.html Print a MISSING Poster] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121116121520/http://www.helpfindjim.com/printposter.html |date=2012-11-16 }} Hang a MISSING Poster in Southern California and Mexico.</ref>

Marine search expert Bob Bilger explains that the type of boat used by Gray, a [[C&C 40]] is vulnerable to hull damage, and can sink as quickly as in 30 seconds, also taking any equipment with it, not leaving any loose debris.<ref>[https://www.wired.com/techbiz/people/magazine/15-08/ff_jimgray Inside the High-Tech Hunt for a Missing Silicon Valley Legend], [[Wired Magazine]] (August 2007)</ref>

The [[University of California, Berkeley]] and Gray's family hosted a tribute on May 31, 2008.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/IPRO/JimGrayTribute|title=Industry|last=root|date=16 February 2016}}</ref> Five years after the disappearance, Carnes petitioned a court to have her husband declared dead and on January 28, 2012, Gray was [[Declared death in absentia|declared legally dead]].<ref name="JG_DecDeath_CACM072012">{{cite journal |last=Greengard |first=Samuel |date=June 2012 |title=Jim Gray Declared Dead |journal=[[Communications of the ACM]] |volume=55 |issue=7 |page=19 |doi=10.1145/2209249.2209257|editor1-first=Moshe |editor1-last=Vardi |editor1-link=Moshe Y. Vardi |issn=0001-0782|doi-access= |s2cid=37344941 }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |work=The New York Times |title=Closure in Disappearance of Computer Scientist |first=Nick|last= Wingfield |date=May 18, 2012 |access-date=May 18, 2012 |url=http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/18/closure-in-disappearance-of-computer-scientist-jim-gray/}}</ref><ref name="cnn-closure">{{Cite web |last=Basu |first=Moni |date=2014-04-12 |title=Living in limbo: Grieving gets tougher when there's no body to bury |url=https://www.cnn.com/2014/04/12/us/malaysia-airlines-grief-no-closure/index.html |access-date=2024-06-19 |website=CNN |language=en}}</ref>

In 2012, Carnes co-authored a paper on coping with [[ambiguous loss]].<ref>"The Myth of Closure", Family Process, Vol. 51, No. 4, 2012</ref> In 2014, in conjunction with the disappearance of [[Malaysia Airlines Flight 370]], CNN interviewed Carnes.<ref name="cnn-closure"/> At the time, she lived with her elderly mother who was suffering from dementia in Wisconsin.

==Legacy==
Microsoft's [[WorldWide Telescope]] software was dedicated to Gray. In 2008, [[Microsoft Research]] opened Gray Systems Lab, a research center in [[Madison, Wisconsin]], named after Jim Gray.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://news.microsoft.com/2008/04/23/database-pioneer-joins-microsoft-to-start-new-database-research-lab/|title=Database Pioneer Joins Microsoft to Start New Database Research Lab {{!}} Stories|date=2008-04-23|work=Stories|access-date=2018-07-19|language=en-US}}</ref>

Database conference [[SIGMOD]] confers the Jim Gray Doctoral Dissertation Award annually to doctoral candidates researching databases.<ref>{{cite web | title=SIGMOD Jim Gray Doctoral Dissertation Award | website=SIGMOD | url=https://sigmod.org/sigmod-awards/sigmod-jim-gray-doctoral-dissertation-award/ | access-date=2024-03-09}}</ref>

Each year, [[Microsoft Research]] presents the [[Jim Gray eScience Award]] to a researcher who has made an outstanding contribution to the field of [[data-intensive computing]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/collaboration/focus/escience/jim-gray-award.aspx|title=Jim Gray eScience Award - Microsoft Research|publisher=Microsoft|work=microsoft.com|access-date=2 July 2015}}</ref> Award recipients are selected for their ground-breaking, fundamental contributions to the field of eScience. Previous award winners include [[Alex Szalay]] (2007), [[Carole Goble]] (2008), [[Jeff Dozier]] (2009), [[Phil Bourne]] (2010), Mark Abbott (2011), [[Antony John Williams]] (2012), and Dr. [[David J. Lipman|David Lipman]], M.D. (2013).

==See also==
*[[List of people who disappeared mysteriously at sea]]

==Notes==
{{notelist}}

==References==
{{Reflist|30em}}

==External links==
*[https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/people/gray/ Gray's Microsoft Research home page] 
*[http://www.nasonline.org/publications/biographical-memoirs/memoir-pdfs/gray-james.pdf Gordon Bell, Leslie Lamport, and Butler W. Lampson, "James N. Gray", Biographical Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences (2013)]

{{Turing award}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gray, James N.}}
[[Category:1944 births]]
[[Category:2000s missing person cases]]
[[Category:2007 deaths]]
[[Category:American computer scientists]]
[[Category:Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences alumni]]
[[Category:Database researchers]]
[[Category:Digital Equipment Corporation people]]
[[Category:IBM Research computer scientists]]
[[Category:Members of the United States National Academy of Engineering]]
[[Category:Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences]]
[[Category:Microsoft employees]]
[[Category:Missing person cases in California]]
[[Category:Microsoft technical fellows]]
[[Category:People declared dead in absentia]]
[[Category:People lost at sea]]
[[Category:Scientists from California]]
[[Category:Turing Award laureates]]
[[Category:UC Berkeley College of Engineering alumni]]