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A new look at Bellman's principle of optimality

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Abstract

New light is shed on Bellman's principle of optimality and the role it plays in Bellman's conception of dynamic programming. It is argued that a failure to recognize the special features of the model in the context of which the principle was stated has resulted in the latter being misconstrued in the dynamic programming literature.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. National Research Institute for Mathematical Sciences of the CSIR, Pretoria, South Africa

    M. Sniedovich (Senior Chief Research Officer)

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  1. M. Sniedovich
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Communicated by S. E. Dreyfus

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Sniedovich, M. A new look at Bellman's principle of optimality. J Optim Theory Appl 49, 161–176 (1986). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00939252

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00939252

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