PHIL: Phil Wolfe
IRV: Irvin Lustig
IRV
Tell me about George Dantzig.
PHIL
My acquaintance with George Dantzig has been very long, at times a bit stormy, but generally - in the decomposition work, for example - we made a perfect pair. George is a genius.
IRV
A modest one at that.
PHIL
A modest one, but he has real originality. When he wades into a problem, he's unencumbered by the kind of baggage a lot of us have. He'll let the problem speak to him in its own language.
I, on the other hand, have a wonderful mathematical education, and when I sit down to a problem, I say, "What is there in my known bag of tricks that I can apply to this?" George has the new ideas. In the collaborative work we did, I was the guy who could put the polish on it and put it in nice mathematical form.
IRV
Your interaction with George, around 1960, 1961, was the decomposition work. Twenty-five years later, he was my thesis advisor. I would describe the experience exactly the same way. I thought that this was an evolution, but you're describing how he's always been. Very interesting.
|