Richard E. Bellman | |
---|---|
Born | Richard Ernest Bellman August 26, 1920 New York City, New York, U.S. |
Died | March 19, 1984 Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
(aged 63)
Fields | Mathematics and Control theory |
Institutions |
University of Southern California; Rand Corporation; |
Alma mater |
Princeton University Johns Hopkins University University of Wisconsin–Madison Brooklyn College |
Doctoral advisor | Solomon Lefschetz |
Known for |
Dynamic programming Bellman equation Hamilton–Jacobi–Bellman equation Curse of dimensionality Bellman–Ford algorithm |
Notable awards |
John von Neumann Theory Prize (1976) IEEE Medal of Honor (1979) Richard E. Bellman Control Heritage Award (1984) |
Richard Ernest Bellman (August 26, 1920 – March 19, 1984) was an American applied mathematician, who introduced dynamic programming in 1953, and important contributions in other fields of mathematics.
Bellman was born in 1920 in New York City to non-practising Jewish parents of Polish and Russian descent, Pearl (née Saffian) and John James Bellman, who ran a small grocery store on Bergen Street near Prospect Park, Brooklyn. He attended Abraham Lincoln High School, Brooklyn in 1937, and studied mathematics at Brooklyn College where he earned a BA in 1941. He later earned an MA from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. During World War II he worked for a Theoretical Physics Division group in Los Alamos. In 1946 he received his Ph.D at Princeton under the supervision of Solomon Lefschetz. Beginning 1949 Bellman worked for many years at RAND corporation and it was during this time that he developed dynamic programming.
Later in life, Richard Bellman's interests began to emphasize biology and medicine, which he identified as “the frontiers of contemporary science”. In 1967, he became founding editor of the journal Mathematical Biosciences which specialized in the publication of applied mathematics research for medical and biological topics. In 1985, the Bellman Prize in Mathematical Biosciences was created in his honor, being award biannually to the journal's best research paper.