An annotated timeline of operations research. An informal history (Q1886078)

The authors ask for the kind of events which have combined to form OR, as ascience that aids in the resolution of human decision-making processes. They feel OR with its own pre-history, conprised of a collection of methods that contributed to the study of decision-making. Thus, the entries in an Annotated Timeline of Operations Research try to capture some of the key events of this pre-history. Many of the early operations researcher were trained as mathematicians, statisticians and physicists, coming quite unrelated fields such as chemistry, law, history , and psychology. The early successes of OR prior to and during World War II illustrate the essential feature that helped to establish OR. Though Annotated Timeline starts in 1564, the scope of what is today OR is encompassed by a short time period -- just over three score years, measured 1936. In charting the timeline of OR there was access to a full trail of journal articles, conference proceedings, and OR people whose computational discoveries have formed the OR. In selecting and developing a timeline entry, the authors had several criteria in mind. They wanted it to be historically correct, offer the reader a concise explanation of the event under discussion, and to be a source document. Most often they had to face conflicting requirements imposed between the timeline and narrative formats. A timeline disperses related events along the chronological line by specific dates, while annotations tend to cluster to place the item of related events into the same entry. Generally, it was used earliest date to place the item on the timeline, and discuss subsequent developments in the annotation for that entry. However, some items evolved over time and required multiple entries. A number of books and papers have been cited, all of which have influenced the development of OR and helped to educate the first generations of OR academics and practitioners.