Jonathan Walsh (BES)
The Fourth Paradigm: Data-Intensive Scientific Discovery is a collection of essays about Jim Gray.
Jim Gray gained fame as a database innovator. His contributions to database software development include transaction processing.
He disappeared at sea three years ago.
Gray asserted that computing is transforming how science works. Scientists will be faced with more data than they can handle and in order to prevent overload a new suite of computing and visualization tools will have to be developed. He named this development a "fourth paradigm".
For more on this see New York Times Science Edition December 14 2009 online here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/15/science/15books.html?_r=1&hpw