Merrill M. Flood

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Merrill Meeks Flood (1912 (?)) is an American mathematician, notable for developing, with Melvin Dresher, the basis of the game theoretical Prisoner's dilemma model of cooperation and conflict while at RAND in 1950 (Albert W. Tucker gave the game it's prison-sentence interpretation, and thus the name by which it is known today).

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[edit] Biography

Flood obtained a Master's degree in number theory at the University of Nebraska, and a PhD at Princeton University in 1935 under the supervision of Joseph Wedderburn, for the dissertation Division by Non-singular Matric Polynomials.

Merrill Flood’s career took him from Princeton University to the War Department, to the Rand Corporation, on to Columbia University, the University of Michigan [1] and the University of California.

He served as the President of both TIMS and ORSA. He was a founding member of TIMS and its second President in 1955. In 1961, he was elected President of ORSA. He also served as Vice President of the Institute of Industrial Engineers from 1962 to 1965.

He was awarded ORSA's George E. Kimball Medal in 1983.

[edit] Work

Merrillwas a pioneer in the field of management science and operations research to problems drawn from all levels of society. As early as 1936-1946, he applied innovative systems analysis to public problems and developed cost-benefit analysis in the civilian sector and cost effectiveness analysis in the military sector.[1]

[edit] Traveling salesman problem

In the 1940’s Flood publicized the name Traveling salesman problem (TSP) within the mathematical community at mass. In 1948 Flood publicized the traveling salesman problem by presenting it at the RAND Corporation according to Flood “when I was struggling with the problem in connecting with a school-bus routing study in New Jersey”[2]

[edit] Hitchcock transportation problem

Equally at home in his original field of the mathematics of matrices and in the pragmatic trenches of the industrial engineer, his research addressed an impressive array of operations research problems. His 1953 paper on the Hitchcock transportation problem is often cited, but he also published work on the traveling salesman problem, and an algorithm for solving the von Neumann hide and seek problem.[1]

[edit] Publications

  • 1948, A Game Theoretic Study of the Tactics of Area Defense, RAND Research Memorandum
  • 1949, Illustrative example of application of Koopmans' transportation theory to scheduling military tanker fleet, RAND Research Memorandum.
  • 1951, A Preference Experiment. RAND Research Paper
  • 1951, A Preference Experiment (Series 2, Trial 1).RAND Research Paper
  • 1952, A Preference Experiment (Series 2, Trials 2, 3, 4). RAND Research Paper
  • 1952, Aerial Bombing Tactics : General Considerations (A World War II Study), RAND Research Memorandum.
  • 1952, On Game-Learning Theory and Some Decision-Making Experiments. RAND Research Paper
  • 1952, Preference Experiment. RAND Research Memorandum
  • 1952, Some Group Interaction Models. RAND Research Memorandum

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b c Merrill M. Flood: 2nd President of TIMS (1955) and 10th President of ORSA, 1961-62, retrieved 15 April 2008
  2. ^ Leonardo Zambito, The Traveling Salesman Problem: A Comprehensive Survey fall 2006. Retrieved 15 April 2008.

[edit] External links