Donald Shell
| Donald Shell | |
|---|---|
| Born | March 1, 1924 |
| Died | November 2, 2015 (aged 91) Asheville, North Carolina |
| Nationality | American |
| Fields | Mathematics Computer science |
| Alma mater |
Michigan Tech University of Cincinnati |
| Known for | Shell sort |
Donald L. Shell (March 1, 1924 – November 2, 2015) was an American computer scientist who designed the Shell sort sorting algorithm. He acquired his Ph.D. in Mathematics from the University of Cincinnati in 1959, and published the shell sort algorithm in the Communications of the ACM in July that same year.
After acquiring a B.S. from Michigan Technological University, he went into the Army Corps of Engineers, and from there to the Philippines to help repair damages during World War II. When he returned after the war, he married Alice McCullough and returned to Michigan Technological University, where he taught mathematics. After, he moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, and worked for General Electric's engines division, where he developed a convergence algorithm and wrote a program to perform performance cycle calculations for GE's first aircraft jet engines. He also went to the University of Cincinnati, where in 1951 he acquired a M.S. in mathematics and, in 1959, acquired his Ph.D. in Mathematics. In July of that year he published the shell sort algorithm and "The Share 709 System: A Cooperative Effort". In 1958, he and A. Spitzbart had published "A Chebycheff Fitting Criterion".
Although he is most widely known for his shell sort algorithm, his Ph.D. is also considered by some to be the first major investigation of the convergence of infinite exponentials, with some very deep results of the convergence into the complex plane. This area has grown considerably and research related to it is now investigated in what is more commonly called tetration. In October 1962 he wrote "On the Convergence of Infinite Exponentials" in the Proceedings of the American Mathematical Society.
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