The Two Generals' Problem
Two armies must attack at the same moment. Any message can be lost, including the one confirming the last one arrived.
1975 (proved), 1978 (named)18 min read
American computer science
Jim Gray
1944 – 2007
American computer scientist who did more than anyone to make database transactions a rigorous, engineerable idea: the ACID properties, two-phase locking, two-phase commit, and recovery. His 1978 lecture notes on database operating systems named the two generals paradox and set out the problem of agreement over unreliable communication for a generation of practitioners. He received the 1998 Turing Award. He was lost at sea in January 2007.