George Dantzig

Dantzig is best known for inventing the simplex method of linear programming while working for the Department of Defense in 1947. "Programming" in this sense meant "planning" and the goal was to mechanize the defense planning processes. This has become one of the most fundamental policy tools available in government and industry in that it enables one to state policy objectives, constraining variables and then in a systematic way find the optimal policy solution.

In 1952 at the RAND corporation Dantzig began to systematically apply computational methods to linear programming, fusing the emerging digital revolution with his own revolutionary linear programming techniques. While in its simplest form linear programming is deterministic, Dantzig all of his life studied optimal planning under uncertainty.

There is a famous story about Dantzig's first year of study at Berkeley under Neyman. It is recounted in his own words in College Math. J. 17 (4) (1986), 293-314:

During my first year at Berkeley I arrived late one day to one of Neyman's classes. On the blackboard were two problems which I assumed had been assigned for homework. I copied them down. A few days later I apologized to Neyman for taking so long to do the homework - the problems seemed to be a little harder to do than usual. I asked him if he still wanted the work. He told me to throw it on his desk. I did so reluctantly because his desk was covered with such a heap of papers that I feared my homework would be lost there forever.

About six weeks later, one Sunday morning about eight o'clock, Anne and I were awakened by someone banging on our front door. It was Neyman. He rushed in with papers in hand, all excited: "I've just written an introduction to one of your papers. Read it so I can send it out right away for publication." For a minute I had no idea what he was talking about. To make a long story short, the problems on the blackboard which I had solved thinking they were homework were in fact two famous unsolved problems in statistics. That was the first inkling I had that there was anything special about them.

Professor Dantzig spent the latter part of his career at Stanford University where one can find an article published in SIAM news in honor of his eightieth birthday.

Born: 8 Nov 1914 in Portland, Oregon, USA