Facebook’s Farmville: What’s the Fastest Way to Get Rich?

One can’t help but notice that a lot of people have been playing Farmville on Facebook lately. Some of my relatives, friends, students and co-workers have taken the plunge. I don’t have time to play Farmville, but I thought it would be interesting to study it. It’s a simple and fun game, easy to explain, [...]

YouTube Videos on Solving LPs with Excel

This had been in the back burner for a long while. Each time I taught my O.R. class (either undergrad or MBA), I kept thinking that the students would like to be able to see the Excel setup of an LP model over and over again. Many of them are not proficient in Excel, and [...]

Modeling Logical Conditions

Binary variables are extensively used in integer programming (IP) models to represent yes/no decisions (“Should we open a new restaurant in Coconut Grove?”), and logical conditions (“If it rains tomorrow, I will not go to the beach.”). Most people are familiar with the project selection problem in which each variable Xi is equal to 1 [...]

OR on the iPhone

I’m the proud owner of an iPhone (1st generation; anxiously waiting for the 3rd gen. release later this year). With all its bells and whistles and intuitive easy-to-use interface, the iPhone can also be used as an effective educational tool. The upcoming hardware and software updates promise to make it even better.
Stanford University has a [...]

No more excuses. Math can be fun!

Everyone who teaches a math-related subject has probably struggled with attracting (and keeping) the students’ attention. At parties, it gets even worse:
- “Hey, nice to meet you. What do you do?”
- “I’m a professor.”
- “Really? What do you teach?”
- “How to use mathematical models to help business managers make better decisions.”
- “Hmm, interesting stuff…I never [...]