Linear Programming: Using Inequalities to Optimize Objectives // Math Minute [#47] [ALGEBRA]

Every math teacher has to be ready for that one question: when am I ever going to use this in real life? My answer is very simple: I do not care. Being that I am not psychic, I do not know what a student will be spending their time on one day, and I have no idea what will be useful or not. (For that matter, students often have misplaced confidence in what they plan to do one day, so I'd recommend we all be a little more circumspect on the matter.)

However, if a student is interested in knowing what on earth from their 8th or 9th or 10th grade math class might actually be useful one day, this is the lesson I point them to. Every single day, businesses around the world engage in a careful balance of their limited resources (capital, floor space, employee time, customer attention) in order to make enough money to survive to the next day. This process can be formalized mathematically into what is called linear optimization or linear programming.

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I'm coming to ask you about the rest of the 2nd problem tomorrow