Ralph J. Slutz (physicist)
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Ralph J. Slutz | |
|---|---|
| Born | May 18, 1917 Cleveland, Ohio, USA |
| Died | November 16, 2005 Boulder, Colorado, USA |
| Known for | SEAC (computer), ICOADS |
Ralph J. Slutz was an American physicist and computer architect known for his work in the Computer Project at the Institute of Advanced Studies and as a co-inventor of SEAC (computer).He was also a pioneer of the comprehensive ocean-atmosphere datasets for the ICOADS project.[1][2][3][4]
Biography
[edit]Slutz was born on May 18, 1917, in Cleveland, Ohio.
He received a bachelor of science in electrical engineering in 1938 and a master of science in 1939 from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Later, Slutz received his PhD in theoretical physics from the Priceton University in 1946.[5]
Slutz was associated with the Computer Project at the Institute of Advanced Study following his PhD in 1946. In 1948, he joined the National Bureau of Standards (now NIST), where he co-invented the SEAC (computer) with Samuel N. Alexander and worked as its chief architect until 1954. Slutz then served as the chief of the Radio Propagation Physics Division at the National Bureau of Standards in Boulder, Colorado, until 1980.[2][3][6][7][8]
After retiring from the National Bureau of Standards in 1980, he became a senior scientist at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) at the University of Colorado at Boulder, where he led the ICOADS project until 1989. In 1987, Slutz co-authored and published the first research paper of ICOADS, titled A Comprehensive Ocean-Atmosphere Data Set. This first released dataset comprised seventy million marine datasets collected between 1854 and 1986. Since then, the datasets of ICOADS have been extended to the late 20th and early 21st centuries.[9][10]
Slutz died on November 16, 2005, in Boulder, Colorado. In 2010, The Ralph J. Slutz Student Excellence Award was established in the Computer Science Department at the University of Colorado at Boulder in his honor.[1][4]
Representative Publications
[edit]- Memories of the Bureau of Standards’ SEAC, in Book of A History of Computing in the Twentieth Century, Academic Press, R. J. Slutz, 1980
- A Comprehensive Ocean-Atmosphere Data Set, in Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, S. D. Woodruff, R. J. Slutz, R. L. Jenne, P. M. Steurer, 1987.
References
[edit]- ^ a b "Contributors". IEEE Antennas and Propagation Magazine. 47 (6): 97–97. 2005-12-09. doi:10.1109/MAP.2005.1608744. ISSN 1558-4143.
- ^ a b "NIST Timeline". NIST.
- ^ a b https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GOVPUB-C13-0b76380f51778ebe3d804f21e9fd3bd6/pdf/GOVPUB-C13-0b76380f51778ebe3d804f21e9fd3bd6.pdf
- ^ a b "Student Awards | Computer Science | University of Colorado Boulder". www.colorado.edu. Retrieved 2025-03-17.
- ^ "Ralph J. Slutz *46 | Princeton Alumni Weekly". paw.princeton.edu. Retrieved 2025-03-17.
- ^ Slutz, Ralph J.; Winkelman, James R. (1964-12-01). "Shape of the Magnetospheric Boundary under Solar Wind Pressure". Journal of Geophysical Research. 69: 4933–4948. doi:10.1029/JZ069i023p04933. ISSN 0148-0227.
- ^ Institute for Advanced Study (Princeton, N. J. ) Electronic Computer Project (1948). Third interim progress report on the physical realization of an electronic computing instrument … 1 January 1948. Institute for Advanced Study. Institute for Advanced Study.
- ^ https://cris.brighton.ac.uk/ws/portalfiles/portal/483843/CACM+on+Prophets+Seers+and+Pioneers+working+draft.pdf
- ^ "Ralph Slutz". Computer Hope. Retrieved 2025-03-17.
- ^ "A Brief History of Cars on Fire at MIT". MIT Admissions. 2016-04-05. Retrieved 2025-03-17.