Richard Bellman (1920?84) was a prominent American mathematician who worked for the Rand Corporation and taught at the University of Southern California. He is particularly noted for his invention of dynamic programming, a problem-solving technique frequently used in mathematics, economics, and operations research. His Dover titles include Dynamic Programming, Perturbation Techniques in Mathematics, Engineering and Physics, Stability Theory of Differential Equations, and (with Kenneth L. Cooke) Modern Elementary Differential Equations.