Video Excerpt

IRV
What do you see for the future of optimization?

ALAN
Before I make a comment, I want to express the following caveats. In that terrible paper that I told you about earlier I had made predictions about the future. Every one of them was terrible. Furthermore, if I could have foreseen the future, I would be a very wealthy man today. I would have invested in IBM in 1951. So, do not rely on me as a prophet! Also, at one stage people had said that they thought there was room in the country for about five computers for research, and I agreed. So, you're surely asking the wrong man!

IRV
Is there anything you'd like to see happen?

ALAN
I'd like to see a closer connection between statistics and operations research. They really ought to be combined at the university level and also in industry. I think greater integration would help. I think each side has something to learn from the other.

IRV
What would you say is holding optimization technology back from growing more popular?

ALAN
I haven't the slightest idea. Well, actually, just speaking personally, some things take a long time to be noticed. If I write a paper and 30 people read it, really read it, I'm delighted. That's a big readership. But if I were to write a consumer software program and less than 50,000 people use it, I'd be disappointed. It's just a different kind of audience that people get used to.

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