Introduction

When mathematics hit the front page of the

New York Times

you just

know

that it must have commercial value. Indeed, linear programming gets to be mentioned in the popular press not infrequently and the following

verbatim

quotation from a front page article of the

New York Times

of November 19, 1984, while not exactly of a recent vintage, sums up very well

part

of why this is so. Under the heading “Breakthrough in Problem Solving” one reads in the second paragraph:

“The discovery, which is to be formally published next month, is already circulating rapidly through the mathematics world. It has also set off a deluge of inquiries from brokerage houses, oil companies and airlines, industries with millions of dollars at stake in problems known as linear programming.”