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Seymour Cray

Applied mathematician, computer scientist, and electrical engineer (1925-1996) · United States · On the map · Scientists · Died at 71

Seymour Roger Cray was an American electrical engineer, computer scientist, mathematician, and supercomputer architect who designed a series of computers that were the fastest in the world for decades, and founded Cray Research, which built many of these machines.

Seymour Cray is read about 174 times a day, in 40 languages.

A typical day, 30 days to 6 November 2026

The middle day of the days counted, so one week of news cannot move it. The line under it is the last 104 days, one point a day.

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A life in dates

1997National Inventors Hall of FameAward1996Died5 October 19961989Eckert-Mauchly AwardAward1979Howard N. Potts MedalAward1972Harry H. Goode Memorial AwardAward1968W. Wallace McDowell AwardAward1925Born28 September 1925

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Awards

National Inventors Hall of Fame1997
Eckert-Mauchly Award1989
Howard N. Potts Medal1979
Harry H. Goode Memorial Award1972
W. Wallace McDowell Award1968
IEEE Ernst Weber Engineering Leadership Recognition

About this person

Called "the father of supercomputing", Cray has been credited with creating the supercomputer industry. Joel S. Birnbaum, then chief technology officer of Hewlett-Packard, said of him: "It seems impossible to exaggerate the effect he had on the industry; many of the things that high performance computers now do routinely were at the farthest edge of credibility when Seymour envisioned them." Larry Smarr, then director of the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois said that Cray is "the Thomas Edison of the supercomputing industry."

Country
United States
Category
Scientists
Type
Scientist
Status
Deceased
Dates
Lived 1925 to 1996 · aged 71