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Mathematics

Linear Programming and the Simplex Method for Optimization

Quick fact

The simplex method, invented by George Dantzig in 1947, can find the optimal solution of a linear program by walking through the vertices of the feasible region, and it almost always requires far fewer steps than the number of vertices—sometimes fewer than 100 for problems with millions of constraints.

Why this is interesting

Have you ever wondered how airlines decide which flights to cancel, or how factories decide what to make when resources are tight? Hidden inside these decisions is a mathematical formula that can be optimized—but how do you find the very best answer without checking every possibility?