Race Hazard
A flaw in system design where the outcome depends on the timing or sequence of uncontrollable events. When two processes collide, unpredictable things happen.
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Origin
The concept arose in mid-20th-century electrical engineering, where signals travelling different path lengths through logic circuits could produce spurious outputs. David A. Huffman formalised critical races in his 1954 paper "The Synthesis of Sequential Switching Circuits" in the Journal of the Franklin Institute, establishing vocabulary that carried directly into software engineering.
Updated February 22, 2026