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What does the word "Programming" mean in "Dynamic Programming"?
The following words comes from http://www-math.ucdenver.edu/~wcherowi/courses/m4010/s05/sanabria.pdf
The word programming was used by the military to mean scheduling. Dantzig's linear programming was an abbreviation of “programming with linear models”. Bellman has described the origin of the name “dynamic programming” as follows. An Assistant Secretary of the Air Force, who was believed to be strongly anti-mathematics was to visit RAND (a cooperation where Bellman was working). So Bellman was concerned that his work on the mathematics of multi-stage decision process would be unappreciated. But “programming” was still OK, and the Air Force was concerned with rescheduling continuously due to uncertainties. Thus “dynamic programming” was chosen, a politically wise descriptor. On the other hand, when I asked him the same question, he replied that he was trying to upstage Dantzig's linear programming by adding dynamic. Perhaps both motivations were true.