Robert Gary Bland (born February 25, 1948) is an American
mathematician
A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems. Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, mathematical structure, structure, space, Mathematica ...
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 ...
er, a professor of operations research and information engineering at
Cornell University
Cornell University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university based in Ithaca, New York, United States. The university was co-founded by American philanthropist Ezra Cornell and historian and educator Andrew Dickson W ...
.Faculty profile Cornell University, retrieved 2012-02-25. He was born in New York City.
Bland did both his undergraduate and graduate studies at
Cornell University
Cornell University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university based in Ithaca, New York, United States. The university was co-founded by American philanthropist Ezra Cornell and historian and educator Andrew Dickson W ...
, earning a bachelor's degree in 1969, M.S. in 1972, and a Ph.D. in 1974 under the supervision of
D. R. Fulkerson
Delbert Ray Fulkerson (; August 14, 1924 – January 10, 1976) was an American mathematician who co-developed the FordFulkerson algorithm, one of the most well-known algorithms to solve the maximum flow problem in networks.
Early life and educa ...
. He began his faculty career at
Binghamton University
The State University of New York at Binghamton (Binghamton University or SUNY Binghamton) is a public university, public research university in Binghamton metropolitan area, Greater Binghamton, New York, United States. It is one of the four uni ...
, but then returned to Cornell in 1978.
Bland is known as one of the inventors of
oriented matroid
An oriented matroid is a mathematical structure that abstracts the properties of directed graphs, vector arrangements over ordered fields, and hyperplane arrangements over ordered fields. In comparison, an ordinary (i.e., non-oriented) matroid a ...
s, which he used to define
Bland's rule In mathematical optimization, Bland's rule (also known as Bland's algorithm, Bland's anti-cycling rule or Bland's pivot rule) is an algorithmic refinement of the simplex method for linear optimization.
With Bland's rule, the simplex algorithm solve ...
for avoiding cycles in the
simplex method
In mathematical optimization, Dantzig's simplex algorithm (or simplex method) is a popular algorithm for linear programming.
The name of the algorithm is derived from the concept of a simplex and was suggested by T. S. Motzkin. Simplices are n ...
for
linear programming
Linear programming (LP), also called linear optimization, is a method to achieve the best outcome (such as maximum profit or lowest cost) in a mathematical model whose requirements and objective are represented by linear function#As a polynomia ...
. Page 150 "It seems fair to say that the major credit for the origination of oriented matroid theory should be shared by Robert Bland,
Jon Folkman
Jon Hal Folkman (December 8, 1938 – January 23, 1969) was an American mathematician, a student of John Milnor, and a researcher at the RAND Corporation.
Schooling
Folkman was a William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition, Putnam Fellow ...
,
Michel Las Vergnas
Michel Las Vergnas (11 January 1941 – 19 January 2013) was a French mathematician associated with Pierre-and-Marie-Curie University in Paris, and a research director emeritus at the Centre national de la recherche scientifique.page 418