

The Life and Times of the Father of Linear Programming (2005) - the_d00d
http://www.lionhrtpub.com/orms/orms-8-05/dantzig.html

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dminor
In my first job out of college we used linear programming to solve
combinatorial auctions - two things I had no idea existed until I interviewed
with the company. It was sort of the nexus between OR and econometrics.

Very interesting to learn there was one man who helped give birth to both
fields.

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eru
You should read about von Neumann and Morgenstern, too.

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the_d00d
There is a great story mathematicians tell about Von Neumann when he first met
Dantzig. From what I remember, Dantzig goes to the chalkboard to explain the
finer points of his simplex method and Von Newmann quickly grows bored and
interrupts him by saying "oh that". Von Newmann then procedes to point out
some deep insights that would only have been obvious to Von Newmann himself.
Dantzig later recalls being left speechless by the brilliance of Von Newmann.

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philip1209
This is great. I had a college course that basically taught only the simplex
algorithm - we did all all of the iterations by hand using tableaus and
matrices.

We are using operations research optimization techniques at my side project,
StaffJoy. The greatest innovation in usability of OR has been the JuMP project
- there is now a fairly universal way to express optimization problems that is
lower-level than Excel and higher-level than C.

[http://juliaopt.org](http://juliaopt.org)

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qwerta
There is no mention of Antonin Svoboda. He developed linear computer which
would target moving airplanes in pre-nazi Czechoslovakia

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anton%C3%ADn_Svoboda](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anton%C3%ADn_Svoboda)

His book from 1948 is probably first book about applied programming:
[https://archive.org/details/ComputingMechanismsLinkages](https://archive.org/details/ComputingMechanismsLinkages)

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the_d00d
The wikipedia article on Linear Programming doesn't mention him either:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_Programming](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_Programming)

A keyword search inside the link to the publication you shared returns no
results for linear programming or simplex. I don't see how your links support
your claim that he should have been mentioned in an article devoted to linear
programming; which, btw, is different from linear targeting.

To be fair, I understand your respect for the man and I don't think anyone
would downplay Svoboda's contributions to computer design and
mathematical/scientific computing.

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doug1001
Leonid Kantorovich doesn't deserve even a mention in this article (or in the
HN comments)? pretty sure that LK is the one who first developed and applied
the technique--and did so with more conviction than most have in their own
work: in Russia, during the Siege of Leningrad, no less--he used this new
technique to calculate the optimum distance between vehicles carrying food &
supplies along the frozen Ladoga river.

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hudibras
Uh, you need to read the whole article.

