Philip Wolfe (mathematician)

Philip Starr " Phil" Wolfe ( born August 11, 1927 in San Francisco) is an American mathematician who deals with Mathematical Optimization and Operations Research.

Wolfe studied interrupted by military service at the University of California, Berkeley, where he earned his bachelor's degree in mathematics and physics in 1948 and master's degree in 1954 and his doctorate under Ed Bracken on Game Theory. Early as 1951, he was for a summer job in one of George Dantzig passed Operations Research group of the U.S. Air Force ( who had previously created plans for the logistics of the Berlin Airlift ). From 1954 he was instructor at Princeton University and the Institute for Advanced Study, where he worked on generalizations of linear programming and quadratic and nonlinear optimization. With Marguerite Frank there was the Frank -Wolfe algorithm for convex optimization. He also dabbled in programming the IAS computer, but had to be binary program in the mid- 1950s, and was therefore, as Wolfe described in an oral history interview of little use for the purposes of Wolfe. In 1957 he went to the Rand Corporation in Santa Monica, where he worked with George Dantzig ( Dantzig -Wolfe decomposition ). He programmed the linear optimization problems as successor to William Orchard - Hays ( at the Johnniac and on an IBM 704). As a programmer, he directed edge one of the first Fortran programs and worked among other things on diets - issue by George Stigler (ingredients for a diet with minimal cost ) with applications in agriculture. In 1965, he was freelancing at IBM in Zurich and the Rand Corporation. From 1966 he worked at the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, where he was from 1968 Deputy Chief of mathematical research. He was also from 1968 to 1977 professor at Columbia University.

In 1992 he was awarded the John von Neumann Theory Prize. 1978 to 1980 he was Director of the Mathematical Programming Society. He was a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

He was married to Hallie Flanigan since 1968 and has one daughter.

Writings

• With George Dantzig: Decomposition Principle for Linear Programs, Operations Research, Volume 8, 1960, pp. 101-111.
• With Marguerite Frank: An algorithm for quadratic programming, Naval Research Logistics Quarterly, Volume 3, 1956, p 95