Egon Balas passed away this week at the age of 96. He was a giant in the field of Operations Research, particularly known for his fundamental contributions to Integer Programming and Disjunctive Programming. Here is my alma mater Carnegie Mellon page in his remembrance.
Prof. Balas’s life history is remarkable. Born in a Hungarian Jewish family in Cluj, Romania, Balas (which is an adopted last name to hide his Jewish identity) was a steelworker as he was denied access to college. Sentenced to multiple years of imprisonment by fascist authorities, Egon daringly escaped, only to return home and find that he had lost his entire family. Later, he fell out of favor with Romanian Communists and was “disappeared”, put in solitary confinement and tortured. Eventually, he was released, and started working on Operations Research problems, and earned his two PhDs (Economics and Mathematics) at the age of 46.
I remember my very first class session as a graduate student in the US, taught by Balas. Gauche and awkward in the newness of the experience, I was a tropical kid shivering in the strangeness of late August chill of Pittsburgh. I still feel the warmth of his welcome in his first class. The enormity of that memory has unfadingly etched in my mind. He had already learned our names and pronounced them flawlessly. Through that year, he taught us Graph Theory and Integer Programming at GSIA (now, Tepper School). I am truly fortunate to have had a transformational experience.
Egon Balas wrote about his experiences in his book, Will to Freedom, an indelible work like Victor Frankel’s Man’s Search for Meaning that I found deeply meaningful in my life. Balas in his measured, unsentimental prose recollects the moments of being subjected to torture, and his thoughts during the months of solitary imprisonment. There are so many unreal moments in his life. For example, he writes about walking a random number of steps and turns, so as to avoid the boredom of repeated cycles in prison enclosure. I am just extraordinarily grateful that he wrote his book.
Egon Balas’s life was a parable. For those among us who stumble every day to learn our undiscovered purpose in life, his book is an exemplary testimony of how to find peace by lingering in one’s own company. Like a quiet sunbeam that pierces the gloom in a room and lights up motes suspended in air, his life kindled hope in many a life.
In academic life, it is not uncommon to come across scholars with immense productivity in terms of academic papers and research impact. We are blessed with career and companionship, and a seemingly endless vista of future possibilities. However, we often mistake providence for genius. Publilius Syrus wisely wrote
“Any one can hold the helm when the sea is calm”.
Certainly seems true. What will happen to us when misfortune befalls?
Egon Balas exemplified the ancient stoic adage to bear one’s misfortunes nobly. Perhaps, adversity is the test of strong men. Egon’s decent, dignified, and productive life is a meaningful reminder on how to make the most of the only thing on earth that we all are given: time.
Notes:
- On this blog, I have been a proponent of the belief, that it is never too late to begin learning new things in life. Balas is a shining example of making most of one’s life, despite having a late start to an academic career.
- Interested in manufacturing automation, I love Egon Balas’s paper on Shifting Bottleneck Heuristic for job shop problems since the first time I read it. Egon Balas has certainly written many more influential and fundamental papers. However, this paper is one of my favorites for its impact, clarity, accessibility, and applicability. It was accepted by Marshall Fisher, who is now my colleague at Wharton. The Fortran code was implemented on DEC’s VAX 11/780, which would now be a ginormous, slow machine. (See picture below).
Adams, J., Balas, E., & Zawack, D. (1988). The Shifting Bottleneck Procedure for Job Shop Scheduling. Management Science, 34(3), 391-401. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2632051
