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George Dantzig, 1914-2005
Markus Registrada writes "George Dantzig, the inventor of the Simplex method for solving Linear Programming problems, died on May 13. He was also the now-legendary student who turned in solutions for what he had taken to be a homework assignment, only to find out they had been posted as examples of what were suspected to be unsolvable problems."
Now this is why I read Slashdot - where else can you get such a diverse range of people, and pick up wonderful little tidbits like the true story behind that wonderful legend about solving unsolved problems? Sure, it's available on Snopes for you to find if you know what you're looking for, but asking the right question is often a lot harder than the answer, as best illustrated bythe Hitch Hiker's guide: Meaning of life=42, Question=???. (Hey, perhaps if they'd put that up on the board, he might have been able to solve that as well!)
Physicist, consultant, science communicator
And we certainly had no idea what you were talking about.
Yes, that is the sad part. Not for him, mind you.
KFG
No amount of money will make a dolt a genius.
I know. I've tried.
It's a well known fact that intelligence is inversely proportional to common sence.
Actually I figure that mathematicians in Hell probably get to see it as well, so they can be tormented by the knowledge of just how inelegant their proofs were.
I worked for many years on a large Telco's work dispatch system based on LP, (8000 users & ~30,000 "jobs" per day). The LP algorithim ran in the background and updated the dispatch plan every 15 minutes, I'm not sure if it "contributed to the well-being and stability of the world".
From what I can gather airline reservation systems probably work on a similar "dynamic" scheduling system.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
It shouldn't be a surprise if you think about it. Linear programming is the simplest generic form of constrained optimization -- the objective function is linear, all the constraints are linear, and that's it. Once you have figured out how to solve the simple case efficiently, you can use it as a basis to develop solutions for more complicated problems.
And of course, optimization is found everywhere you want to do something in the cheapest, fastest, or otherwise most effective way possible. Sometimes you can make an accurate non-linear model that is solvable, but most of the time you need to simplify the situation. Once you simplify enough, you'll end up with the simplest possible objective function and constraints, in other word, a linear programming problem.
Your IQ is 148, but you can't tell the difference between a "b" and an "m"?
"you'd be reading ABOUT be, not from me"
"About the same as between be and Neanderthal Man."
It is possible that his belief that it was a homework problem gave him the confidence that there was a simple and elegant solution. Without this belief he might never have explored solutions that were "too simple" to work.
I'm sorry, but I have to disagree. While there are, of course, many bad teachers, there are also many who encourage creative thinking and reward originality.
"P=NP?" and many other important problems in theoretical computer science are also perfect examples of problems that could be solved by someone working on their own, without even needing much input from a university. The reason that they haven't been solved so far is that they're hard - not because teachers have been "trampling creative geniuses down into the mud".
Scientists (usually) do science because they want to discover new, exciting and creative things - not because they want to suppress independent thought.
I'm also kind of amused by your claim that you'd have achieved as much as George Dantzig if you hadn't given in to all that "social conditioning" thrust upon you.
Just ask.
Either way, if the game did have some inbalance, you *could* find it if you could be bothered :)
You've not played these online? You are likely to find out rather quickly some stunningly effective short-term strategies/techniques used against you.
Nothing like having 50 zerglings show up in your base, for example.
There are some imbalances that only become apparant when a few thousand monkeys have been set loose at the consoles to see what shakes out. Then, they come out with a patch that, oh by the way, adjusts unit parameters to take the most glaring imbalances away...
If that were generally accepted, we wouldn't be having this conversation. Your stating it as fact doesn't necessarily make it so.
First of all, it is a quotient
Most mappings from test score -> 100-centered scale involve standard deviations. That is, IQ = 100 + (number of standard devations from the mean) * (15 or 16). 15 or 16 comes from an effort to correlate that score with the rational score you mentioned, but that's about the only tie between the two.
Second, the IQ test was designed with children in mind
There is no "the" IQ test. There are many to choose from, depending on who and what you wish to attempt to measure.
Boy, you are just full of yourself, aren't you?
Yes; yes, he was. I'll give you that one. :-)
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
If you are so smart, learn to undo your conitionning.
Information: "I want to be anthropomorphized"