1914-

American Mathematician

George Dantzig is the founder of linear programming, a mathematical method that has had extensive applications in a variety of areas, from logistics management to computer programming. Simultaneous with his development of linear programming was his discovery of the simplex method, a problem-solving algorithm that has proven highly efficient in the linear programming of computers. His interest in the application of his ideas has taken him into a variety of pursuits, including the coauthorship of a seminal text in urban planning, Compact City (1973).

Dantzig's father, Tobias, participated in the abortive Revolution of 1905 in Russia. After spending nine months in a Russian prison, the elder Dantzig emigrated to Paris, where he studied mathematics at the Sorbonne. He married Anja Ourisson, moved to the United States in 1909, and settled in Portland, Oregon, where George was born on November 8, 1914. Tobias went on to write...