Such a scary name for something so trivial ... More like ... "Improved Brute Force Approach " 😂 UPDATE (thanks, Flaxx) — So basically Bellman picked an obscure name that sounded important so his boss wouldn’t know what he was really doing on the job. Many can relate — haha "I felt I had to do something to shield Wilson and the Air Force from the fact that I was really doing mathematics inside the RAND Corporation. What title, what name, could I choose? In the first place I was interested in planning, in decision making, in thinking. But planning, is not a good word for various reasons. I decided therefore to use the word “programming”. I wanted to get across the idea that this was dynamic, this was multistage, this was time-varying. I thought, let's kill two birds with one stone. Let's take a word that has an absolutely precise meaning, namely dynamic, in the classical physical sense. It also has a very interesting property as an adjective, and that is it's impossible to use the word dynamic in a pejorative sense. Try thinking of some combination that will possibly give it a pejorative meaning. It's impossible. Thus, I thought dynamic programming was a good name. It was something not even a Congressman could object to. So I used it as an umbrella for my activities."
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There's a Wikipedia article on the origin of the name. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_programming#History
Thanks! Updated OP.
Interestingly, the word programming here has nothing to do with computer programming.
Most textbooks I've read mention its related to linear programming, which predates computers. Wikipedia goes into more detail, read it once you're done in the shower.
Brute force is also a scary name if you think about it
Pretty primal IMO
Brute Force would be an awesome pro wrestling name.
A mathematician working for a military contractor in the 50s used the name for his work to obscure the fact he was doing math research (Which was unpopular with the administration for spending money on), so he could still secure research funds from the military. It was intentionally a nonsense name. The "useful" parts of his research kept the name though.
"It's impossible to use the word dynamic in a pejorative sense. Try thinking of some combination that will possibly give it a pejorative meaning. It's impossible." — Bellman I don’t know about that ... Dynamic Sh*tting? ... omg he’s right!!! 🙀
Would brute force be still called the same if Brutus hadn’t stabbed Caesar?
I came up with it