The graphical method of solution illustrated by the example in the preceding section is useful only for systems of inequalities involving two variables. In practice, problems often involve hundreds of equations with thousands of variables, which can result in an astronomical number of extreme points. In 1947 George Dantzig, a mathematical adviser for the U.S. Air Force, devised the simplex method to restrict the number of extreme points that have to be examined. The simplex method is one of the most useful and efficient algorithms ever invented, and it is still the standard method employed on computers to solve optimization problems. First, the method assumes that an extreme point is known. (If no extreme point is given, a variant of the simplex method, called Phase I, is used to find one or to determine that there are no feasible solutions.) Next, using an algebraic specification of the problem, a test determines whether that extreme point is optimal. If the test for optimality is not passed, an adjacent extreme point is sought along an edge in the direction for which the value of the objective function increases at the fastest rate. Sometimes one can move along an edge and make the objective function value increase without bound. If this occurs, the procedure terminates with a prescription of the edge along which the objective goes to positive infinity. If not, a new extreme point is reached having at least as high an objective function value as its predecessor. The sequence described is then repeated. Termination occurs when an optimal extreme point is found or the unbounded case occurs. Although in principle the necessary steps may grow exponentially with the number of extreme points, in practice the method typically converges on the optimal solution in a number of steps that is only a small multiple of the number of extreme points.

To illustrate the simplex method, the example from the preceding section will be solved again. The problem is first put into canonical form by converting the linear inequalities into equalities by introducing “slack variables” x₃ ≥ 0 (so that x₁ + x₃ = 8), x₄ ≥ 0 (so that x₂ + x₄ = 5), x₅ ≥ 0 (so that x₁ + x₂ + x₅ = 10), and the variable x₀ for the value of the objective function (so that x₁ + 2x₂ − x₀ = 0). The problem may then be restated as that of finding nonnegative quantities x₁, …, x₅ and the largest possible x₀ satisfying the resulting equations. One obvious solution is to set the objective variables x₁ = x₂ = 0, which corresponds to the extreme point at the origin. If one of the objective variables is increased from zero while the other one is fixed at zero, the objective value x₀ will increase as desired (subject to the slack variables satisfying the equality constraints). The variable x₂ produces the largest increase of x₀ per unit change; so it is used first. Its increase is limited by the nonnegativity requirement on the variables. In particular, if x₂ is increased beyond 5, x₄ becomes negative.

At x₂ = 5, this situation produces a new solution—(x₀, x₁, x₂, x₃, x₄, x₅) = (10, 0, 5, 8, 0, 5)—that corresponds to the extreme point (0, 5) in the figure. The system of equations is put into an equivalent form by solving for the nonzero variables x₀, x₂, x₃, x₅ in terms of those variables now at zero; i.e., x₁ and x₄. Thus, the new objective function is x₁ − 2x₄ = −10, while the constraints are x₁ + x₃ = 8, x₂ + x₄ = 5, and x₁ − x₄ + x₅ = 5. It is now apparent that an increase of x₁ while holding x₄ equal to zero will produce a further increase in x₀. The nonnegativity restriction on x₃ prevents x₁ from going beyond 5. The new solution—(x₀, x₁, x₂, x₃, x₄, x₅) = (15, 5, 5, 3, 0, 0)—corresponds to the extreme point (5, 5) in the figure. Finally, since solving for x₀ in terms of the variables x₄ and x₅ (which are currently at zero value) yields x₀ = 15 − x₄ − x₅, it can be seen that any further change in these slack variables will decrease the objective value. Hence, an optimal solution exists at the extreme point (5, 5).

Standard formulation

In practice, optimization problems are formulated in terms of matrices—a compact symbolism for manipulating the constraints and testing the objective function algebraically. The original (or “primal”) optimization problem was given its standard formulation by von Neumann in 1947. In the primal problem the objective is replaced by the product (px) of a vector x = (x₁, x₂, x₃, …, x_n)^T, whose components are the objective variables and where the superscript “transpose” symbol indicates that the vector should be written vertically, and another vector p = (p₁, p₂, p₃, …, p_n), whose components are the coefficients of each of the objective variables. In addition, the system of inequality constraints is replaced by Ax ≤ b, where the m by n matrix A replaces the m constraints on the n objective variables, and b = (b₁, b₂, b₃, …, b_m)^T is a vector whose components are the inequality bounds.