{"id":13389,"date":"2025-11-21T14:47:04","date_gmt":"2025-11-21T19:47:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/cleve\/?p=13389"},"modified":"2025-11-21T14:47:04","modified_gmt":"2025-11-21T19:47:04","slug":"jack-dongarra","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/cleve\/2025\/11\/21\/jack-dongarra\/","title":{"rendered":"Jack Dongarra"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"content\"><!--introduction-->\r\n<p>Jack Dongarra is my student, colleague and friend.<\/p>\r\n<p>\r\n<img decoding=\"async\" vspace=\"5\" hspace=\"5\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/cleve\/files\/Jack.png\" alt=\"\"> <\/p>\r\n<!--\/introduction-->\r\n<h3>Contents<\/h3>\r\n<div>\r\n<ul>\r\n<li>\r\n<a href=\"#57418509-4148-4c00-ac91-c59f3c68d4cf\">Turing Award<\/a>\r\n<\/li>\r\n<li>\r\n<a href=\"#00e6856d-ff69-4356-8780-68012d37db59\">Jack<\/a>\r\n<\/li>\r\n<li>\r\n<a href=\"#0898ef85-6086-4570-88f9-84c4355575c1\">PC-AT<\/a>\r\n<\/li>\r\n<li>\r\n<a href=\"#d452c4f9-6cbf-46ea-833d-e969f6503194\">Argonne<\/a>\r\n<\/li>\r\n<li>\r\n<a href=\"#b1a2e041-fbad-43c9-80c3-7ae3525b1e8b\">New Mexico<\/a>\r\n<\/li>\r\n<li>\r\n<a href=\"#ae15a3f3-72f9-4c74-8fe6-f7e4ee85ee21\">Accidental Benchmark<\/a>\r\n<\/li>\r\n<li>\r\n<a href=\"#ad07ec60-9ae8-48ba-8a68-8ad4bcfcca7d\">Spokesman<\/a>\r\n<\/li>\r\n<li>\r\n<a href=\"#856292c1-b159-4c68-979e-1229156cf2cc\">SC Conference<\/a>\r\n<\/li>\r\n<li>\r\n<a href=\"#bca056a7-11ee-4188-9699-72502c438f36\">ICL<\/a>\r\n<\/li>\r\n<li>\r\n<a href=\"#9ca24409-f804-4e88-a89e-61b3e2025d0b\">Tradition<\/a>\r\n<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<h4>Turing Award<a name=\"57418509-4148-4c00-ac91-c59f3c68d4cf\"><\/a>\r\n<\/h4>\r\n<p>\r\n<img decoding=\"async\" vspace=\"5\" hspace=\"5\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/cleve\/files\/Turing.png\" alt=\"\"> <\/p>\r\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/amturing.acm.org\">ACM Turing Award<\/a> is an annual prize given by the Association% for Computing Machinery (ACM) for contributions of lasting and major technical importance to computer science. It is generally recognized as the highest distinction in the field of computer science and is often referred to as the \"Nobel Prize of Computing\".<\/p>\r\n<p>Jack Dongarra won the Turing Award in 2021. Here is his award lecture, a very personal story. <a href=\"https:\/\/amturing.acm.org\/vp\/dongarra_3406337.cfm\">https:\/\/amturing.acm.org\/vp\/dongarra_3406337.cfm<\/a>\r\n<\/p>\r\n<h4>Jack<a name=\"00e6856d-ff69-4356-8780-68012d37db59\"><\/a>\r\n<\/h4>\r\n<p>\r\n<img decoding=\"async\" vspace=\"5\" hspace=\"5\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/cleve\/files\/Jack_Lino.png\" alt=\"\"> <\/p>\r\n<p>\r\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.henkvandervorst.nl\/computing.html\">https:\/\/www.henkvandervorst.nl\/computing.html<\/a>\r\n<\/p>\r\n<p>Linocut by Henk van der Vorst.<\/p>\r\n<p>I first met Jack at Argonne in 1970 when we began work on the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.netlib.org\/eispack\">EISPACK<\/a> project.<\/p>\r\n<p>In 1979, he came to the University of New Mexico to work on a Ph.D. degree under my supervision. His <a href=\"https:\/\/www.netlib.org\/utk\/people\/JackDongarra\/PAPERS\/003_1983_improving-the-accuracy-of-computed-eigenvalues.pdf\">thesis<\/a> is \"Improving the Accuracy of Computed Eigenvalues and Eigenvectors\".<\/p>\r\n<h4>PC-AT<a name=\"0898ef85-6086-4570-88f9-84c4355575c1\"><\/a>\r\n<\/h4>\r\n<p>\r\n<img decoding=\"async\" vspace=\"5\" hspace=\"5\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/cleve\/files\/PC-AT.png\" alt=\"\"> <\/p>\r\n<p>Jack and the IBM PC-AT in 1984.<\/p>\r\n<p>Jack has been the primary implementor or principal investigator for many libraries including LINPACK, BLAS, LAPACK, ScaLAPACK, PLASMA, MAGMA, and SLATE.<\/p>\r\n<h4>Argonne<a name=\"d452c4f9-6cbf-46ea-833d-e969f6503194\"><\/a>\r\n<\/h4>\r\n<p>The LINPACK Guys.<\/p>\r\n<p>\r\n<img decoding=\"async\" vspace=\"5\" hspace=\"5\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/cleve\/files\/Linpack_guys_1.png\" alt=\"\"> <\/p>\r\n<p>\r\n<img decoding=\"async\" vspace=\"5\" hspace=\"5\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/cleve\/files\/Linpack_guys_3.png\" alt=\"\"> <\/p>\r\n<p>The authors of LINPACK -- Jack Dongarra, Cleve Moler, Pete Stewart and Jim Bunch -- at James Lyness's house near Argonne in the summer of 1978.<\/p>\r\n<p>The first snapshot was in the <i>New York Times<\/i> when Jack won the Turing Award.<\/p>\r\n<h4>New Mexico<a name=\"b1a2e041-fbad-43c9-80c3-7ae3525b1e8b\"><\/a>\r\n<\/h4>\r\n<p>\r\n<img decoding=\"async\" vspace=\"5\" hspace=\"5\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/cleve\/files\/NM79.png\" alt=\"\"> <\/p>\r\n<p>The 1978 New Mexico plate on Jack's Car in the <i>NYT<\/i> photo is gold. Jack had two 1979 turquoise plates made. He has one of them and he gave the other to me.<\/p>\r\n<h4>Accidental Benchmark<a name=\"ae15a3f3-72f9-4c74-8fe6-f7e4ee85ee21\"><\/a>\r\n<\/h4>\r\n<p>\r\n<img decoding=\"async\" vspace=\"5\" hspace=\"5\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/cleve\/files\/linpackbm.png\" alt=\"\"> <\/p>\r\n<p>The LINPACK benchmark is an accidental offspring of the development of the LINPACK software package. We asked two dozen universities and laboratories to test the software on a variety of main frame machines that were then available in central computer centers. We also asked them to measure the time required to solve a 100-by-100 system of simultaneous linear equations.<\/p>\r\n<p>Appendix B of the LINPACK Users' Guide has the timing results. The hand-written notes shown here are Jack's calculation of the megaflop rate, millions of floating point operations per second. With a matrix of order n , the megaflop rate for a factorization by Gaussian elimination plus two triangular solves is<\/p>\r\n<p>\r\n<tt>megaflops = (2\/3*n^3 + 2*n^2)\/time\/10^6<\/tt>\r\n<\/p>\r\n<p>Jack and colleagues have continued to collect results. Twice a year, the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/TOP500\">TOP500<\/a> determines the world's fastest computer.<\/p>\r\n<h4>Spokesman<a name=\"ad07ec60-9ae8-48ba-8a68-8ad4bcfcca7d\"><\/a>\r\n<\/h4>\r\n<p>\r\n<img decoding=\"async\" vspace=\"5\" hspace=\"5\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/cleve\/files\/Titan.png\" alt=\"\"> <\/p>\r\n<p>Jack has become a spokeman for high performance computing. He is often quoted by main-stream media.<\/p>\r\n<h4>SC Conference<a name=\"856292c1-b159-4c68-979e-1229156cf2cc\"><\/a>\r\n<\/h4>\r\n<p>\r\n<img decoding=\"async\" vspace=\"5\" hspace=\"5\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/cleve\/files\/SC22.png\" alt=\"\"> <\/p>\r\n<p>Jack has been very active in the Super Computer Conferences. SC22 gave him a rousing local-kid-makes-good welcome after he won the Turing Award.<\/p>\r\n<h4>ICL<a name=\"bca056a7-11ee-4188-9699-72502c438f36\"><\/a>\r\n<\/h4>\r\n<p>\r\n<img decoding=\"async\" vspace=\"5\" hspace=\"5\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/cleve\/files\/ICL.png\" alt=\"\"> <\/p>\r\n<p>Jack established the Innovative Computing Laboratory in 1989 when he accepted a dual appointment as a Distinguished Professor at the University of Tennessee and a Distinguished Scientist at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Since then, ICL has grown into an internationally recognized research laboratory, specializing in Numerical Linear Algebra, Distributed Computing, and Performance Evaluation and Benchmarking. The lab now employs nearly twenty researchers, students, and staff.<\/p>\r\n<h4>Tradition<a name=\"9ca24409-f804-4e88-a89e-61b3e2025d0b\"><\/a>\r\n<\/h4>\r\n<p>\r\n<img decoding=\"async\" vspace=\"5\" hspace=\"5\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/cleve\/files\/SC2018.png\" alt=\"\"> <\/p>\r\n<p>John Gilbert, Jack, me and Rob Shriber traditionally meet for dinner once a year at the Super Computer conference. This photo was at SC18 in Dallas.<\/p>\r\n<script language=\"JavaScript\"> <!-- \r\n    function grabCode_97606da2c36c420890dd509fe7385c72() {\r\n        \/\/ Remember the title so we can use it in the new page\r\n        title = document.title;\r\n\r\n        \/\/ Break up these strings so that their presence\r\n        \/\/ in the Javascript doesn't mess up the search for\r\n        \/\/ the MATLAB code.\r\n        t1='97606da2c36c420890dd509fe7385c72 ' + '##### ' + 'SOURCE BEGIN' + ' #####';\r\n        t2='##### ' + 'SOURCE END' + ' #####' + ' 97606da2c36c420890dd509fe7385c72';\r\n    \r\n        b=document.getElementsByTagName('body')[0];\r\n        i1=b.innerHTML.indexOf(t1)+t1.length;\r\n        i2=b.innerHTML.indexOf(t2);\r\n \r\n        code_string = b.innerHTML.substring(i1, i2);\r\n        code_string = code_string.replace(\/REPLACE_WITH_DASH_DASH\/g,'--');\r\n\r\n        \/\/ Use \/x3C\/g instead of the less-than character to avoid errors \r\n        \/\/ in the XML parser.\r\n        \/\/ Use '\\x26#60;' instead of '<' so that the XML parser\r\n        \/\/ doesn't go ahead and substitute the less-than character. \r\n        code_string = code_string.replace(\/\\x3C\/g, '\\x26#60;');\r\n\r\n        copyright = 'Copyright 2025 The MathWorks, Inc.';\r\n\r\n        w = window.open();\r\n        d = w.document;\r\n        d.write('<pre>\\n');\r\n        d.write(code_string);\r\n\r\n        \/\/ Add copyright line at the bottom if specified.\r\n        if (copyright.length > 0) {\r\n            d.writeln('');\r\n            d.writeln('%%');\r\n            if (copyright.length > 0) {\r\n                d.writeln('% _' + copyright + '_');\r\n            }\r\n        }\r\n\r\n        d.write('<\/pre>\\n');\r\n\r\n        d.title = title + ' (MATLAB code)';\r\n        d.close();\r\n    }   \r\n     --> <\/script>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: right; font-size: xx-small; font-weight:lighter;   font-style: italic; color: gray\">\r\n<br>\r\n<a href=\"javascript:grabCode_97606da2c36c420890dd509fe7385c72()\"><span style=\"font-size: x-small;        font-style: italic;\">Get \r\n      the MATLAB code <noscript>(requires JavaScript)<\/noscript>\r\n<\/span><\/a>\r\n<br>\r\n<br>\r\n      Published with MATLAB&reg; R2024b<br>\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<!--\r\n97606da2c36c420890dd509fe7385c72 ##### SOURCE BEGIN #####\r\n%% Jack Dongarra\r\n% Jack Dongarra is my student, colleague and friend.\r\n%\r\n% <<Jack.png>>\r\n\r\n%% Turing Award\r\n%\r\n% <<Turing.png>>\r\n%\r\n% The <https:\/\/amturing.acm.org ACM Turing Award> is an annual prize\r\n% given by the Association% for Computing Machinery (ACM)\r\n% for contributions of lasting and major\r\n% technical importance to computer science. It is generally recognized\r\n% as the highest distinction in the field of computer science and is\r\n% often referred to as the \"Nobel Prize of Computing\".\r\n%\r\n% Jack Dongarra won the Turing Award in 2021.\r\n% Here is his award lecture, a very personal story.\r\n% <https:\/\/amturing.acm.org\/vp\/dongarra_3406337.cfm>\r\n\r\n%% Jack\r\n%\r\n% <<Jack_Lino.png>>\r\n% \r\n% <https:\/\/www.henkvandervorst.nl\/computing.html>\r\n%\r\n% Linocut by Henk van der Vorst.\r\n%\r\n% I first met Jack at Argonne in 1970 when we began work on the\r\n% <https:\/\/www.netlib.org\/eispack EISPACK> project.\r\n%\r\n% In 1979, he came to the University of New Mexico to work on a \r\n% Ph.D. degree under my supervision.  His \r\n% <https:\/\/www.netlib.org\/utk\/people\/JackDongarra\/PAPERS\/003_1983_improving-the-accuracy-of-computed-eigenvalues.pdf\r\n% thesis> is \"Improving the Accuracy of Computed Eigenvalues and\r\n% Eigenvectors\".\r\n\r\n%% PC-AT\r\n%\r\n% <<PC-AT.png>>\r\n%\r\n% Jack and the IBM PC-AT in 1984.\r\n%\r\n% Jack has been the primary implementor or principal investigator for\r\n% many libraries including LINPACK, BLAS, LAPACK, ScaLAPACK, PLASMA,\r\n% MAGMA, and SLATE. \r\n\r\n%% Argonne\r\n% The LINPACK Guys.\r\n%\r\n% <<Linpack_guys_1.png>>\r\n%\r\n%\r\n% <<Linpack_guys_3.png>>\r\n%\r\n% The authors of LINPACK REPLACE_WITH_DASH_DASH Jack Dongarra, Cleve Moler, Pete Stewart\r\n% and Jim Bunch REPLACE_WITH_DASH_DASH at James Lyness's house near Argonne\r\n% in the summer of 1978. \r\n%\r\n% The first snapshot was in the _New York Times_ when Jack won the\r\n% Turing Award.\r\n\r\n%% New Mexico\r\n%\r\n% <<NM79.png>>\r\n%\r\n% The 1978 New Mexico plate on Jack's Car in the _NYT_ photo is gold.\r\n% Jack had two 1979 turquoise plates made.  He has one of them\r\n% and he gave the other to me.\r\n\r\n%% Accidental Benchmark\r\n%\r\n% <<linpackbm.png>>\r\n%\r\n% The LINPACK benchmark is an accidental offspring of the development\r\n% of the LINPACK software package.\r\n% We asked two dozen universities and\r\n% laboratories to test the software on a variety of main frame machines\r\n% that were then available in central computer centers.\r\n% We also asked them to measure the time required\r\n% to solve a 100-by-100 system of simultaneous linear equations. \r\n%\r\n% Appendix B of the LINPACK Users' Guide has the timing results. \r\n% The hand-written notes shown here are Jack's calculation of the\r\n% megaflop rate, millions of floating point operations per second. \r\n% With a matrix of order n , the megaflop rate for a factorization \r\n% by Gaussian elimination plus two triangular solves is\r\n%\r\n% |megaflops = (2\/3*n^3 + 2*n^2)\/time\/10^6|\r\n%\r\n% Jack and colleagues have continued to collect results.\r\n% Twice a year, the <https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/TOP500 TOP500>\r\n% determines the world's fastest computer.\r\n\r\n%% Spokesman\r\n%\r\n% <<Titan.png>>\r\n%\r\n% Jack has become a spokeman for high performance computing.\r\n% He is often quoted by main-stream media.\r\n\r\n%% SC Conference\r\n%\r\n% <<SC22.png>>\r\n%\r\n% Jack has been very active in the Super Computer Conferences.\r\n% SC22 gave him a rousing local-kid-makes-good welcome after he won the\r\n% Turing Award.\r\n\r\n\r\n%% ICL\r\n%\r\n% <<ICL.png>>\r\n%\r\n% Jack established the Innovative Computing Laboratory in 1989 when\r\n% he accepted a dual appointment as a Distinguished Professor at the\r\n% University of Tennessee and a Distinguished Scientist at Oak Ridge\r\n% National Laboratory. Since then, ICL has grown into an internationally\r\n% recognized research laboratory, specializing in Numerical Linear\r\n% Algebra, Distributed Computing, and Performance Evaluation and \r\n% Benchmarking. The lab now employs nearly twenty researchers, students,\r\n% and staff.\r\n\r\n%% Tradition \r\n%\r\n% <<SC2018.png>>\r\n%\r\n% John Gilbert, Jack, me and Rob Shriber traditionally meet for dinner once\r\n% a year at the Super Computer conference.  This photo was at SC18\r\n% in Dallas.\r\n\r\n\r\n##### SOURCE END ##### 97606da2c36c420890dd509fe7385c72\r\n-->\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"overview-image\"><img src=\"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/cleve\/files\/Jack_Lino.png\" class=\"img-responsive attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" \/><\/div><!--introduction-->\r\n<p>Jack Dongarra is my student, colleague and friend.... <a class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/cleve\/2025\/11\/21\/jack-dongarra\/\">read more >><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":78,"featured_media":13394,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4,8,37,19,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/cleve\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13389"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/cleve\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/cleve\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/cleve\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/78"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/cleve\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13389"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/cleve\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13389\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13425,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/cleve\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13389\/revisions\/13425"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/cleve\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13394"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/cleve\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/cleve\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/cleve\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}