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Dantzig, George B. (1914–2005)

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The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics

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Abstract

George Dantzig is known as the ‘father of linear programming’ and the ‘inventor of the simplex method: Employed at the Pentagon (the US government’s defence establishment) in 1947 and motivated to ‘mechanize’ programming in large time-staged planning problems, George Dantzig gave a general statement of what is now known as a linear program, and invented an algorithm, the simplex method, for solving such optimization problems. By the force of Dantzig’s theory, algorithms, practice, and professional interaction, linear programming flourished. Linear programming has had an impact on economics, engineering, statistics, finance, transportation, manufacturing, management, and mathematics and computer science, among other fields. The list of industrial activities whose practice is affected by linear programming is very long.

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Authors
  1. Richard W. Cotile
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  2. B. Curtis Eaves
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  3. Mukund N. Thapa
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Editor information

Steven N. Durlauf Lawrence E. Blume

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© 2008 Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited

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Cotile, R.W., Eaves, B.C., Thapa, M.N. (2008). Dantzig, George B. (1914–2005). In: Durlauf, S.N., Blume, L.E. (eds) The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-58802-2_355

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-58802-2_355

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  • Print ISBN: 978-0-333-78676-5

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