A Candle to Saint Jude, or Four Real World Applications of Integer Programming

Abstract

This author has discovered the interesting fact from his experience that on many real world problems, people with experience can beat an elegant theoretical method all the time. If one were to accept this fact as truth, heresy though it may be, one would be driven to the even more embarrassing conclusion that maybe the way to do some things better is to ask the experienced people and then simulate them. Of course one must agree that this method flies in the face of all of the theory that says, “Work from the theory to the model to the world.” The author has had, however, enough bitter experience with the latter method, to find that it has no useful purpose other than for pelting adversaries at learned society meetings.