349. Oxford 1957: The first international conference on OR. Topics, influence, gender
Invited abstract in session WD-3: Operational Research Frontiers: the past & the future, stream Celebrating 50 Years of EURO.
Wednesday, 14:30-16:00Room: Esther Simpson 1.01
Authors (first author is the speaker)
| 1. | Richard Vahrenkamp
|
| Economics, University of Kassel |
Abstract
Organized by the French, British and US OR societies, the first international conference on OR took place in Oxford 1957 and was well recorded by Max Davies in a book with more than 300 pages. It shows the topics of the conference and a detailed list of the 250 participants, mainly from the NATO states and the British Commonwealth, but including two Polish mathematicians, the only ones from the communist bloc. The conference was supported by US money to cover the transatlantic flights of the US participants and was part of the US soft power against communism. Stafford Beer from the British company United Steel, who later became famous as a management consultant, gave a lecture on the simulation of production processes with mechanical analogue computers - in the absence of a digital high-speed computer: “The Mechanical Simulation of Stochastic Flows”. In the main section of the book the delegates of the various countries reported on the stage of OR development in their country. On the photo of the participants one can count 10 female participants, all below the degree of a professor. In East Germany, Hannelore Fischer became the first female professor of OR in 1968, the first one in East Germany and in Europe. The conference had great influence on the formation of national OR societies in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. The societies fought to get a seat at the first IFORS conference in Aix 1960.
Keywords
- OR History
Status: accepted
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