Linear Programming 1 Introduction [Hardcover]

Encompassing all the major topics students will encounter in courses on the subject, the authors teach both the underlying mathematical foundations and how these ideas are implemented in practice. They illustrate all the concepts with both worked examples and plenty of exercises, and, in addition, provide software so that students can try out numerical methods and so hone their skills in interpreting the results. As a result, this will make an ideal textbook for all those coming to the subject for the first time.
Authors' note: A problem recently found with the software is due to a bug in Formula One, the third party commercial software package that was used for the development of the interface. It occurs when the date, currency, etc. format is set to a non-United States version. Please try setting your computer date/currency option to the United States option . The new version of Formula One, when ready, will be posted on WWW.By George B. Dantzig LINEAR PROGRAMMING The Story About How It Began: Some legends, a little about its historical sign- cance, and comments about where its many mathematical programming extensions may be headed. Industrial production, the ?ow of resources in the economy, the exertion of military e?ort in a war, the management of ?nancesall require the coordination of interrelated activities. What these complex undertakings share in common is the task of constructing a statement of actions to be performed, their timing and quantity(calledaprogramorschedule), that, ifimplemented, wouldmovethesystem from a given initial status as much as possible towards some de?ned goal. While di?erences may exist in the goals to be achieved, the particular processes, and the magnitudes of e?ort involved, when modeled in mathematical terms these seemingly disparate systems often have a remarkably similar mathematical str- ture. The computational task is then to devise for these systems an algorithm for choosing the best schedule of actions from among lÃ'