Elmor Peterson
In September of 1963, while still working on his PhD dissertation (on "complex variables"), Peterson started "a new full-time one-year in-house consulting job at the nearby Westinghouse Research and Development Center -- mainly to gain additional industrial experience prior to going into academic research and teaching". This became a "lucky move to the right place at the right time" -- in that he "soon entered into a three-year collaboration with both [his] dissertation advisor, Professor Richard J. Duffin, and the Director of Science for Westinghouse Electric Corporation, Doctor Clarence Zener. This collaboration, which was stimulated by Zener's surprising 'closed-form solution' to some important optimization problems in engineering design, laid the mathematical foundations for a new subfield of 'nonlinear optimization', termed 'geometric programming'. It also produced, in early 1967, the first book on the subject, which was translated into Russian in 1972, and which spawned the publication of at least four books as well as numerous introductory expositions and research articles by others. Moreover, in May of 1978, the largest construction company in the world, Bechtel Corporation, announced in the Operations Research/Management Science news publication INTERFACES that its engineers had been able to save, with the help of geometric programming, at least $50,000,000 while designing and constructing a water storage and distribution system for Algeria (a country in North Africa). Currently, there seems to be more than 80,000 Internet references to the theory, algorithms, and applications of geometric programming (which has been implemented with user-friendly software readily available in the 'MATLAB Optimization Toolbox' and elsewhere). The subject is also being taught at many leading research universities (such as in the engineering graduate colleges at Princeton and Stanford)".
Peterson returned to academia as a full-time faculty member in September of 1966, initially for three years at the University of Michigan [Ann Arbor] (including both a one-semester visit to West Virginia University [Morgantown] and a one-year visit to the US Army Mathematics Research Center at the University of Wisconsin [Madison]), and then for ten years at Northwestern University (including a sabbatical year at Stanford). During this thirteen-year period (in which he became a full professor at Northwestern in 1973), with the "help of research grants from both the Mobil Foundation and the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, [he] published twenty-eight papers (seven invited) -- ranging in subject matter from 'complex analysis' to the mathematical foundations of both 'linear optimization' and general 'nonlinear optimization/equilibration' (including major extensions in the applicability of geometric programming). [He] also gave eighty-one invited lectures -- thirty-four at national or international conferences, and more than twenty-five at major research centers and universities (such as Arizona [Tucson], California [Berkeley], Carnegie-Mellon, Chicago, Florida [Gainesville], IBM [Yorktown Heights], Illinois [Urbana], Maryland [College Park], Michigan [Ann Arbor], Michigan State [East Lansing], National Bureau of Standards [Washington, DC], Naval Postgraduate School [Monterey], NC State [Raleigh], Northwestern, Oakland [Michigan], Purdue, Rensselaer, Stanford, Waterloo [Canada], Wisconsin [Madison], and Yale)". In addition, he "chaired eight PhD dissertations that eventually led to at least one full professorship, two endowed full professorships, and one deanship for three former advisees at three different major research universities. [He] also served for twelve years on a 'consultants bureau' for the Mathematical Association of America, and completed four short projects individually requested by the American Mathematical Society, the Mathematical Programming Society, the National Science Foundation, and Carnegie-Mellon University, while performing brief consulting services for three corporations (McGraw Edison, Montgomery Ward, and Westinghouse Telecomputer)".
Born and raised in the "hills of western Pennsylvania", Peterson and his wife Miriam eventually became "tired of the flat mid-west topography and its extremely cold winters". In July of 1979, they "joined Professor Salah E. Elmaghraby and his wife Amina in the culturally improving and intellectually exciting Research Triangle, North Carolina (with its hilly terrain and moderate climate, only two and a half hours from both the Blue Ridge mountains and the Atlantic seashore)". He became Professor of Mathematics and Operations Research at NC State [Raleigh], and she became "Director of the Wake County Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children, as well as both Adjunct Assistant Professor of Public Health Nutrition at the University of North Carolina [Chapel Hill] and weekly nutrition commentator for WTVD".
During his twenty-six years at NC State, with the "help of research grants from both the National Science Foundation and CRAY Research", Peterson "continued [his] previous research and began writing books on the mathematical foundations of both linear optimization and general nonlinear optimization/equilibration (including the 'generalized geometric programming' [he] had developed in the 1970's). While publishing thirteen papers (three invited), and while giving twenty-two invited lectures (seventeen at national or international conferences, one at UNC [Chapel Hill], three at Georgia Tech, and one at the Colorado School of Mines), [he] chaired or co-chaired at least five PhD dissertations that eventually led to at least one full professorship at a major research university (in Taiwan), as well as a full professorship and deanship at an international business school (in Japan). [He] also served for six years on the editorial board of a journal of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, and completed five short projects, four requested by the Operations Research Society of America and one by the College of William & Mary, while performing brief consulting services for two corporations and one non-profit institution (AT&T, Glen Raven Mills and the Research Triangle Institute)". Moreover, he served the NC State University Graduate Program in Operations Research in various administrative capacities: as Acting Director from July of 1981 until August of 1983, Acting Associate Director from January of 1996 until August of 1996, Facilitator from September of 1996 until December of 1996, Acting Associate Director again from January of 2000 until August of 2000, and finally as Co-Director from September of 2000 until December of 2001.
In retirement from classroom teaching since July of 2005, Peterson now has more time for his main hobby -- "the acquisition (usually via estate and consignment auctions or tag sales) of period furniture, accessories, decorative art, folk art and fine art (including at least one old-master painting) dating mainly from the 1500s to the early 1900s, as well as artifacts (such as native-American arrow heads) dating from as early as 8000 BC". Thirty years in the making, the resulting collections, which now fill most of his Raleigh home, also "illustrate the evolution in design over the centuries for various types of devices (such as barometers; bells; candle sticks, chamber sticks, rush-light holders, candle extinguishers and snuffers, grease and oil lamps, chandeliers, wall sconces, lanterns, flint lighters and other lighting devices; carpenter, farm, cloth-weaving and shoe-making tools, as well as hunting and fishing devices; fireplace mantels and tools, bed warmers, a brazier and other heating devices; churns, jugs, bowls, pans, coffee and tea pots, and other food-preparation devices, as well as a chalice, flagons, steins, tureens, plates, eating utensils, and other food-serving devices; chains, locks and keys; clocks, sand timers and other timing devices; coins, cathedral tokens and icons, pagan votives, gambling chips and bone dice; cradles and high chairs; document boxes, coffer chests, trunks, portable desks, and other personal-storage devices, as well as an ink well, pen, personal seals, a wax jack, and other writing devices; scissors, needles, thimbles, and related sewing devices; brooches, buckles, buttons, pins, rings, a powdered wig, silk top hats, and other clothing and textiles; personal armor and hand weapons, as well as a compass, telescope, small signal canons and other nautical devices; a tobacco jar, pipes and a tamper, as well as an opium pipe and water bottle)". Displayed "as if they would have been displayed when in normal daily use (which many still are), these collections have attracted the attention of the North Carolina Museum of Art, which has expressed an interest in possibly showcasing them".
The Petersons also have more time now "to enjoy [their] quarter-time ownership of an ocean-front house on Bald Head Island, North Carolina (where [he] helped the local history museum locate and acquire a previously photographed but missing 1807 pen-and-ink sketch of the first Cape-Fear lighthouse, which was replaced in 1817 with the still-standing Old Baldy, whose construction was originally authorized by President Thomas Jefferson)". They are also "renovating both [their] Raleigh home (including the incorporation of some innovative architectural elements designed by [them]) and a recently acquired lake-side mountain cottage in Highlands, North Carolina (which originated as a small hunting lodge approximately a century ago, and might be eligible for inclusion in the National Register of Historic Places)".
Peterson soon will publish his "new algorithmic approaches to 'large-scale linear systems' -- approaches that might provide serious competition for both the widely used 'iterative algorithms' for solving large-scale systems of linear equations and the widely used 'interior-point algorithms' for solving large-scale linear optimization problems." He also will be publishing his "complete solution to the most fundamental problem in 'stochastic linear optimization' -- a solution (unsuccessfully sought by others over the past fifty years) that provides explicit formulas for the relevant 'output probability distributions' (concerning problem 'consistency', 'boundedness', and 'optimality') induced by a given 'input probability distribution' (jointly describing the given input data)". In addition, he will be giving invited lectures on these two discoveries in "special sessions" at the forthcoming national conference of The Institute for Operations Research and Management Science, to be held in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in November of 2006. These special sessions -- entitled "Geometric Programming: Research inspired by the work of Dick Duffin, Elmor Peterson and Clarence Zener" -- are part of a professional celebration of the birth of geometric programming in the Pittsburgh area forty-five years ago (which will be attended by the Peterson's two adult children and some extended family members).
As an explanation for his continuing scholarly activity in retirement, Peterson describes personal mathematical creation and discovery (especially when followed by publication and eventual application) as "extreme highs in that defining significant new mathematical concepts or seeing important mathematical relationships not previously seen by others will always be one of the truly great joys in my life."
(August, 2006 –An expanded version of "A Conversation with Elmor L Peterson" by Alexander B Sibley).