Origins & Early Life

Richard Ernest Bellman (August 26, 1920 – March 19, 1984) was an American applied mathematician, who introduced dynamic programming in 1953, and made important contributions in other fields of mathematics, such as biomathematics. He founded the leading biomathematical journal Mathematical Biosciences, as well as the Journal of Mathematical Analysis and Applications. Bellman was born in 1920 in New York City to non-practising Jewish parents of Polish and Russian descent, Pearl (née Saffian) and John James Bellman, who ran a small grocery store on Bergen Street near Prospect Park, Brooklyn. He was an atheist.

Pivotal Works & Achievements

He attended Abraham Lincoln High School, Brooklyn in 1937, and studied mathematics at Brooklyn College where he earned a BA in 1941. He later earned an MA from the University of Wisconsin. During World War II, he worked for a Theoretical Physics Division group in Los Alamos. In 1946, he received his Ph.D. at Princeton University under the supervision of Solomon Lefschetz.

Enduring Legacy & Impact

Beginning in 1949, Bellman worked for many years at RAND corporation, and it was during this time that he developed dynamic programming. Later in life, Richard Bellman's interests began to emphasize...

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