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Richard W. Cottle RICHARD W. COTTLE An Oral History conducted by Kandis Scott STANFORD HISTORICAL SOCIETY ORAL HISTORY PROGRAM Stanford University ©2015 2 Richard W. Cottle 3 4 Contents Introduction p. 7 Abstract p. 9 Biography p. 11 Interview Transcripts p. 15 Curriculum Vitae p. 93 Index p. 117 5 6 Introduction This oral history was conducted by the Stanford Historical Society Oral History Program, in collaboration with the Stanford University Archives. The program is under the direction of the Oral History Committee of the Stanford Historical Society. The Stanford Historical Society Oral History Program furthers the Society’s mission “to foster and support the documentation, study, publication, dissemination, and preservation of the history of the Leland Stanford Junior University.” The program explores the institutional history of the University, with an emphasis on the transformative post-WWII period, through interviews with leading faculty, staff, alumni, trustees, and others. The interview recordings and transcripts provide valuable additions to the existing collection of written and photographic materials in the Stanford University Archives. Oral history is not a final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a unique, reflective, spoken account, offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it may be deeply personal. Each oral history is a reflection of the past as the interviewee remembers and recounts it. But memory and meaning vary from person to person; others may recall events differently. Used as primary source material, any one oral history will be compared with and evaluated in light of other evidence, such as contemporary texts and other oral histories, in arriving at an interpretation of the past. Although the interviewees have a past or current connection with Stanford University, they are not speaking as representatives of the University. Each transcript is edited by program staff and by the interviewee for grammar, syntax, and occasional inaccuracies and to aid in overall clarity and readability, while maintaining the substantive content of the interview as well as the interviewee’s voice. As a result of this editing process, the transcript does not match the recording verbatim. In the rare case that a substantive deletion has been made, this is indicated at the relevant place on the transcript. Any substantive additions are noted in brackets or by footnote. 7 All uses of the interview transcripts and recordings are covered by a legal agreement between Richard W. Cottle and the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University (“Stanford”). The copyright to the transcripts and recordings, including the right to publish, is reserved by Stanford University. The transcripts and recordings are freely made available for non-commercial purposes, with proper citation provided in print or electronic publication. No part of the transcripts or recordings may be used for commercial purposes without the written permission of the Stanford University Archivist or his/her representative. Requests for commercial use should be addressed to [email protected] and should indicate the items to be used, extent of usage, and purpose. This oral history should be cited as “Richard W. Cottle, Stanford Historical Society Oral History Program Interviews (SC0932). Department of Special Collections & University Archives, Stanford University Libraries, Stanford, Calif.” 8 Abstract In the first of two interviews with Kandis Scott, Richard W. “Dick” Cottle gives a brief account of his birth in Chicago and education in neighboring Oak Park, Illinois. He reflects on his undergraduate and graduate studies in mathematics: first at Harvard and then (after a two-year interlude of prep-school mathematics teaching) at the University of California, Berkeley where he had the good fortune of working at the Radiation Laboratory and the Operations Research Center with George Dantzig. Cottle relates how upon completion of his doctoral studies, he took a position at Bell Telephone Laboratories for two years, accepted a one-year visiting faculty position with Stanford’s Operations Research Program, and became a member of the tenure-line faculty when the OR Program became the Department of Operations Research. He talks about his rise through the academic ranks, his collaboration with George Dantzig (who had left Berkeley and joined Stanford), the formation of the Mathematical and Computational Sciences Program, the anti-Viet Nam War turbulence, his receipt of the U.S. Senior Scientist Award from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, and eventual chairmanship of the OR Department. He discusses the merger of the OR Department with the Engineering-Economic Systems Department and a second merger four years later with the Department of Industrial Engineering and Engineering Management. The second interview returns to the formation of the OR Department, its nature, its chairs, and the contemporaneous deans of the School of Engineering. Cottle recounts stories about his own chairmanship (which ended when the first of the two mergers occurred) and some of the challenges faced by the department. He also talks about events on campus, some of his closest friends on the Stanford faculty, and the effect that international recognition for his scholarly work had on his life at Stanford. He relates how he became involved with the writing of the book Stanford Street Names and other book projects. Responding to interviewer Kandis Scott’s questions, Cottle reflects on changes in the university, his sense of the most notable accomplishments of his career, and the challenges he faces going forward. The interview closes with comments on the influence of his family life. 9 10 Richard W. “Dick” Cottle Biography Richard W. “Dick” Cottle, Professor of Management Science and Engineering, Emeritus, is known for his work on the linear complementarity problem and other areas of operations research. Cottle joined Stanford as an Acting Assistant Professor of Industrial Engineering in 1966 and retired from the Management Science and Engineering Department (MS&E) in 2005. Cottle was born in Chicago in 1934 to Charles and Rachel Cottle. He attended elementary and high school in Oak Park, Illinois, graduating from Oak Park-River Forest High School. He received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in mathematics from Harvard. During the Sputnik era, Cottle was inspired to teach secondary-level mathematics. He taught for two years at the Middlesex School in Concord, Massachusetts before deciding to pursue doctoral studies in geometry at the University of California at Berkeley. While at Berkeley, Cottle worked part-time as a computer programmer in the Radiation Laboratory. It was through his work at the Rad Lab that Cottle learned about linear and quadratic programming and the contributions of George Dantzig and Philip Wolfe. Soon thereafter he joined Dantzig’s team at Berkeley’s Operations Research Center (ORC) and completed his PhD in 1964 under Dantzig’s tutelage. Cottle’s work at ORC led to his first research contribution: the symmetric duality theory of quadratic programming. He then formulated what he called the “composite problem’’ of quadratic and more generally nonlinear programming. Abstracting from this, he conceived what was first called “the fundamental problem’’ and later named “the complementarity problem.’’ An important special case of the complementarity problem called “the linear complementarity problem’’ (LCP) became a major theme in Cottle’s research activity. In 1966, after a short stint working for Bell Telephone Laboratories in Holmdel, New Jersey, Cottle joined Stanford’s Program in Operations Research as an Acting 11 Assistant Professor of Industrial Engineering. He was promoted to Associate Professor in 1969 and full Professor in 1973. Cottle collaborated closely with his mentor George Dantzig (who had moved from Berkeley to Stanford in 1966) on research and administrative matters and at the Systems Optimization Laboratory (SOL). Cottle chaired the Operations Research Department from 1990 to 1996 and served as the associate chair of the Engineering-Economic Systems & Operations Research Department (EES & OR) after the merger of the two departments. In 2000, EES & OR merged again, this time with the Industrial Engineering & Engineering Management Department to form Management Science and Engineering (MS&E). In addition to these departmental affiliations, Cottle has worked with the Undergraduate Program in Mathematical and Computational Sciences since its creation in 1975. Four sabbatical leaves offered Cottle special opportunities to concentrate on research. During the 1970-1971 academic year which he spent at Harvard and MIT, Cottle produced one of his most frequently cited papers “Manifestations of the Schur Complement.’’ On a sabbatical leave at ETH Zurich in 1972, Cottle began writing his most significant publication: The Linear Complementarity Problem, a comprehensive text/reference. Two of his gifted doctoral students, Jong-Shi Pang and Richard E. Stone, joined him in completing this work, which was awarded the Frederick W. Lanchester Prize by the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS) in 1994. In 2009 the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics published a revised edition in its Classics in Applied Mathematics series. Cottle spent the 1978-1979 academic year at the University of Bonn and the University of Cologne as a recipient of the U.S. Senior Scientist Award given by the Alexander
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