Title of Presentation: An Annotated Timeline of Operations Research

EURO 2006

Rejkjavik, Iceland

July 2006

Abstract:

We review our recent efforts to develop a history of OR viewed as a timeline description of events, people, and other influences. To date, we have identified over 400 such items extending over 400 years. We discuss a biased sample of such items that relate to the question: How did OR get from there to here? We include answers to the following OR trivia: Who solved the general n-point facility location problem when he was 16 years old? Who wrote the first book on operations research OR methods and when was it published? When was the first OR journal published and who sponsored it? Why did the economist T.C. Koopmans give $40,000 (a third of his 1975 Nobel prize in economics) away?

Bio

B.S. Education, M.A. Mathematics, Boston University; PhD. Engineering Science, University of California, Berkeley; currently Professor Emeritus, Smith School of Business, University of Maryland. He served in the U.S. Air Force Directorate of Management Analysis where linear programming was first developed. His publications include: Linear Programming; Decision Making, Models and Algorithms; An Illustrated Guide to Linear Programming; Encyclopedia of Operations Research and Management Sciences and An Annotated Timeline of Operations Research: An Informal History (coauthor).