Ralph E. Gomory

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Ralph Edward Gomory (born May 7, 1929 in Brooklyn Heights , New York City ) is an American computer scientist and applied mathematician and research manager.

education

Gomory graduated from Williams College with a bachelor's degree in 1950, studied at Cambridge and received his doctorate from Princeton University in 1954 with Solomon Lefschetz ( Critical points at infinity and forced oscillations ). From 1954 to 1957 he served in the US Navy . 1957 to 1959 he was Higgins Lecturer and Assistant Professor at Princeton.

IBM

In 1959 he joined the then newly founded research department at IBM . In 1964 he became an IBM Fellow , from 1965 he headed mathematical research at IBM and in 1970 he became director of the research department there. In 1973 he became Vice President of IBM and in 1985 Senior Vice President for Science and Technology . In his 18 years as research director at IBM, the foundations of RISC technology were laid at the Thomas J. Watson Research Center , the foundations of relational databases were carried out at the research center in San José, and work was carried out at the Zurich research center that led to two Nobel prizes ( scanning tunneling microscope by Gerd Binnig , Heinrich Rohrer , high-temperature superconductor from Johannes Georg Bednorz , Karl Alexander Müller ).

Sloan Foundation and after

In 1989 he retired from IBM and became President of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation , which he remained until 2007. He then went to New York University (Stern School of Business) as a professor .

During his time as director of the Sloan Foundation, the Sloan Foundation pioneered online learning in the United States (even before the rise of the Internet), supported minority scholars, and began a series of industrial studies. During his time he also took part in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and the inventory of marine life ( Census of Marine Life ).

Work as a mathematician

As a mathematician, Gomory initially dealt with nonlinear differential equations. During his time at Princeton he was - inspired by his time with the US Navy, where he turned to operations research - a pioneer of integer programming with the development of a generally applicable cutting plane method (1958). While at IBM, he published with Paul Gilmore on the one-dimensional cutting problem ( English cutting stock problem- ), the Traveling Salesman Problem and the knapsack problem with TC Hu on network flows . In the late 1960s, he investigated the asymptotic theory of integer programming and introduced Corner Polyhedra . In the 1970s, he and Ellis Johnson investigated subadditive functions related to Corner Polyhedra, which can be useful for introducing cutting planes in integer programming.

Awards, honors, memberships

Gomory is also an eight-time honorary doctor, a member of the National Academy of Sciences , the American Academy of Arts and Sciences , the American Philosophical Society , the National Academy of Engineering and an honorary member of the IEEE .

Others

He was a trustee of Princeton University from 1985 to 1989 and Hampshire College from 1977 to 1986. From 1984 to 1992 and 2001 to 2009 he was an adviser to the US President for Science and Technology (PCAST). He is a member of the National Academies Board on Science Technology and Economic Policy (STEP).

He was a director at the Washington Post Company, the Bank of New York and Lexmark .

Gomory is divorced and has three children.

Fonts

  • with William J. Baumol: Global Trade and Conflicting National Interests . MIT Press 2001.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Life data according to American Men and Women of Science , Thomson Gale 2004
  2. ^ Mathematics Genealogy Project
  3. ^ Ralph E. Gomory: Outline of an algorithm for integer solutions to linear programs . In: Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society . tape 64 , no. 5 , September 1958, p. 275-278 , doi : 10.1090 / S0002-9904-1958-10224-4 .
  4. ^ Frederick W. Lanchester Prize. (No longer available online.) Informs.org ( Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences ), archived from the original on October 2, 2015 ; accessed on February 16, 2016 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.informs.org
personal data
SURNAME Gomory, Ralph E.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Gomory, Ralph Edward (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American computer scientist
DATE OF BIRTH May 7, 1929
PLACE OF BIRTH Brooklyn Heights , New York