ALAN: Alan Hoffman
IRV: Irvin Lustig
IRV
Looking back at the work you've done, is there any one project or event that has made you proud to be in this field?
ALAN
In general, I think the growth of optimization has made me proud. As the meetings grew larger, I could see that there was this enormous fraternity of people who were interested - and for different reasons. There were people like me whose principal interest was proving theorems, there were those who were interested in developing algorithms, there were those who wanted to do programming, and there were people who wanted to make applications in the real world. So, each of these subfraternities is substantial in its own right.
From the point of view of my personal interest, I felt the development of polyhedral combinatorics gave me lots of pleasure.
IRV
What would you say has contributed most to the growing number of applications for optimization?
ALAN
My guess would be education, particularly in business schools. First, business school students were learning more mathematics and secondly, getting jobs. Some of the people who were in business schools and were really good at mathematics stayed in it. So, there was a connection of the culture with the subject. And then the codes got better and each fed the other. So this interplay surely had an effect.
IRV
Are there other factors that have contributed?
ALAN
I think the success of optimization has had a lot to do with data availability, and improvements in hardware and software - you need all three to be solving the kinds of problems we solve today.
IRV
What people in the field have you admired and why?
ALAN
Practically everybody, but let me mention Al Tucker. He died in 1988 or 1989, but he was an exceptionally nice person. Let me tell you one instance. I had gone to Office of Naval Research in London in 1955 or 1956, and came back and visited Al at Princeton where he was the Chairman of the Math Department. And I was telling him about the work I'd done in London with the use of linear inequalities to do combinatorial things. Al was scheduled to speak on this subject at an American Mathematical Society symposium. He got in touch with the organizer and said, "You should really have Alan speak on this subject rather than me. He has better stuff." Now, the general ego of mathematicians is of such a nature that his act of generosity was really incredible. From that moment on, I felt like a senior person in the field and I think others viewed me as such. And this is only one of the generous things Al did for others during his career.
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