Merrill Meeks Flood (1908 – 1991) was an American mathematician, notable for developing, with

Melvin Dresher Melvin Dresher (born Dreszer; March 13, 1911 – June 4, 1992) was a Poland, Polish-born United States, American mathematician, notable for developing, alongside Merrill M. Flood, Merrill Flood, the game theory, game theoretical model of cooperat ...

, the basis of the game theoretical

Prisoner's dilemma The prisoner's dilemma is a game theory thought experiment involving two rational agents, each of whom can either cooperate for mutual benefit or betray their partner ("defect") for individual gain. The dilemma arises from the fact that while def ...

model of cooperation and conflict while being at

RAND The RAND Corporation, doing business as RAND, is an American nonprofit global policy think tank, research institute, and public sector consulting firm. RAND engages in research and development (R&D) in several fields and industries. Since the ...

in 1950 ( Albert W. Tucker gave the game its prison-sentence interpretation, and thus the name by which it is known today).

Biography

Flood received an MA in mathematics at the

University of Nebraska A university () is an educational institution, institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several Discipline (academia), academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase , which roughly ...

, and a PhD at

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial ...

in 1935 under the supervision of

Joseph Wedderburn Joseph Henry Maclagan Wedderburn FRSE FRS (2 February 1882 – 9 October 1948) was a Scottish mathematician, who taught at Princeton University for most of his career. A significant algebraist, he proved that a finite division algebra is a fi ...

, for the dissertation ''Division by Non-singular Matric Polynomials''. In the 1930s he started working at

, and after the War he worked at the

Rand Corporation The RAND Corporation, doing business as RAND, is an American nonprofit global policy think tank, research institute, and public sector consulting firm. RAND engages in research and development (R&D) in several fields and industries. Since the ...

Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...

, the

University of Michigan The University of Michigan (U-M, U of M, or Michigan) is a public university, public research university in Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest institution of higher education in the state. The University of Mi ...

Huixian Xu et al. (2001).
Merrill M. Flood: 2nd President of TIMS (1955) and 10th President of ORSA, 1961–62"
. Accessed April 15, 2008 and the

University of California The University of California (UC) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university, research university system in the U.S. state of California. Headquartered in Oakland, California, Oakland, the system is co ...

. In the 1950s Flood was one of the founding members of TIMS and its second President in 1955. End 1950s he was among the first members of the

Society for General Systems Research The International Society for the Systems Sciences (ISSS) is a worldwide organization for systems sciences. The overall purpose of the ISSS is: to promote the development of conceptual frameworks based on general system theory, as well as their i ...

. In 1961, he was elected President of the Operations Research Society of America (ORSA), and from 1962 to 1965 he served as Vice President of the

Institute of Industrial Engineers The Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers (IISE), formerly the Institute of Industrial Engineers, is a professional society dedicated solely to the support of the industrial engineering profession and individuals involved with improving ...

. In 1983 he was awarded ORSA's George E. Kimball Medal. He was elected to the 2002 class of

Fellow A fellow is a title and form of address for distinguished, learned, or skilled individuals in academia, medicine, research, and industry. The exact meaning of the term differs in each field. In learned society, learned or professional society, p ...

s of the

Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences The Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS) is an international society for practitioners in the fields of operations research Operations research () (U.S. Air Force Specialty Code: Operations Analysis), often s ...

Work

Flood is considered a pioneer in the field of

management science Management science (or managerial science) is a wide and interdisciplinary study of solving complex problems and making strategic decisions as it pertains to institutions, corporations, governments and other types of organizational entities. It is ...

and

operations research Operations research () (U.S. Air Force Specialty Code: Operations Analysis), often shortened to the initialism OR, is a branch of applied mathematics that deals with the development and application of analytical methods to improve management and ...

, who has been able to apply their techniques to problems on many levels of society. According to Xu (2001) "as early as 1936–1946, he applied innovative

systems analysis Systems analysis is "the process of studying a procedure or business to identify its goal and purposes and create systems and procedures that will efficiently achieve them". Another view sees systems analysis as a problem-solving technique that ...

to public problems and developed cost-benefit analysis in the civilian sector and cost effectiveness analysis in the military sector".

Traveling salesman problem

In the 1940s Flood publicized the name

Traveling salesman problem In the theory of computational complexity, the travelling salesman problem (TSP) asks the following question: "Given a list of cities and the distances between each pair of cities, what is the shortest possible route that visits each city exac ...

(TSP) within the mathematical community at mass. He publicized the TSP in 1948 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". Even more important, as far as common usage goes, Flood himself claimed to have coined the term "software" in the late 1940s.

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 Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock (13 August 1899 – 29 April 1980) was an English film director. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential figures in the history of cinema. In a career spanning six decades, he directed over 50 featu ...

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.

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

References

External links

Biography of Merrill Flood
from the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS)

(San Francisco on May 14, 1984). {{DEFAULTSORT:Flood, Merrill M. 1908 births 1991 deaths 20th-century American mathematicians American game theorists American operations researchers Princeton University alumni RAND Corporation people University of Michigan staff University of Michigan faculty Fellows of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences