In 1939, George Dantzig was pursuing a doctoral programme in mathematics at the University of California, Berkeley, where he studied statistics under Jerzy Neyman. Of all his achievements, a misunderstanding catapulted Dantzig’s name to the stuff of legend. One day, at the beginning of class, Neyman scribbled two “random” problems on the blackboard. Dantzig, who arrived late, assumed them to be a delayed homework assignment.
Accordingly, Dantzig, who felt they “seemed to be a little harder than usual”, submitted solutions to both those problems a few days later, still believing that they were part of an assignment long overdue. Weeks later, Neyman summoned Dantzig, and revealed that the “homework” problems he had solved were two of the most famous unsolved conundrums in statistics.
This story became a great tale of genius in scientific circles. George Bernard Dantzig was born on November 8, 1914, in Portland, Oregon, USA, to a mathematician-linguist couple, and was named after Irish writer George Bernard Shaw. Dantzig attended Powell Junior High School and Central High School, and was fascinated by geometry. This interest was further nurtured by his father, who challenged him with complicated problems, particularly in projective geometry. Dantzig received his BS in mathematics and physics from the University of Maryland in 1936, and earned his master’s degree in mathematics from the University of Michigan, the following year. He received his PhD from Berkeley in 1946.
Over the course of his career, he worked on several complex concepts, such as devising the simplex method, an algorithm for solving problems that involve numerous conditions and variables, and in the process founded the field of linear programming. Linear programming is defined as a mathematical method for determining a way to achieve the best outcome in a given mathematical model for a list of requirements represented as linear relationships.
From being a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Dantzig was also the recipient of several honours, including the first John von Neumann Theory Prize in 1974, the National Medal of Science in 1975, and the Mathematical Programming Society instituting the George B. Dantzig Prize in his name, bestowed every three years since 1982 on one or two people who have made a significant impact in the field of mathematical programming. Dantzig died on May 13, 2005, in Stanford, California.