Complex Problem  

                          Complex ProblemIn World War II,

 when the war operations had to be planned to economize expenditure and maximize damage to the enemy, linear programming problems came to the forefront.          

The first problem in linear programming was formulated in 1941 by the Russian mathematician, L. Kantorovich and the American economist, F. L. Hitchcock, both of whom worked at it independently of each other. This was a well-known transportation problem. In 1945, an English economist, G. Stigler, described yet another linear programming problem - that of determining an optimal diet.                                                          In 1947, the American economist, G. B. Dantzig suggested an efficient method known as the simplex method which is an iterative procedure to solve any linear programming problem in a finite number of steps.                                                                        L. Katorovich and American mathematical economist, T. C. Koopmans were awarded the Nobel prize in the year 1975 in economies for their pioneering work in linear programming. With the advent of computers and the necessary software, it has become possible to apply linear programming models to increasingly complex problems in many areas.