Horace Clifford Levinson (30 June 1895, in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

– 1968, in

Kennebunk, Maine Kennebunk is a town in York County, Maine, United States. The population was 11,536 at the 2020 census (The population does not include Kennebunkport, a separate town). Kennebunk is home to several beaches, the Rachel Carson National Wildlife R ...

) was an American mathematician, astronomer, and pioneer of

operations research Operations research ( en-GB, operational research) (U.S. Air Force Specialty Code: Operations Analysis), often shortened to the initialism OR, is a discipline that deals with the development and application of analytical methods to improve deci ...

, introducing quantitative methods and sophisticated mathematical models into advertising and merchandising. Horace C. Levinson's father was the noted Chicago lawyer Salmon Oliver Levinson. In 1909 the Society of Practical Astronomical was founded by two teenagers: Frederick Charles Leonard (1896–1960) as president and H. C. Levinson as treasurer. The Society was disbanded in 1917, but it played a significant role in the history of the

American Association of Variable Star Observers The American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO) is an international nonprofit organization, founded in 1911, focused on coordinating, analyzing, publishing, and archiving variable star observations made largely by amateur astronomers. ...

. During World War I, Levinson was a lieutenant in the U.S. Army. In September 1922, Levinson received his Ph.D. in mathematical astronomy and pure mathematics from the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...

with thesis ''The gravitational field of masses relatively at rest according to Einstein's theory of gravitation''. In 1924 he was an Invited Speaker of the ICM in Toronto. During the 1930s, Horace C. Levinson began to apply scientific analysis for the problems of merchandising. His work for L. Bamberger and Company, involved, among other things, a study of customer buying habits, the response to advertising, and the relation of environment to the type of articles sold. In the 1920s, Levinson had completed a study for a mail-order house on the effect of speeded-up shipment on the customer acceptance or rejection of c.o.d. packages. His success in predicting general human reactions from the collection and analysis of great quantities of data led him later to initiate a study for Bamberger on the effectiveness, in terms of added sales, of keeping department stores open at night. Levinson taught mathematics at

Ohio State University The Ohio State University, commonly called Ohio State or OSU, is a public land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio. A member of the University System of Ohio, it has been ranked by major institutional rankings among the best publ ...

and was the chair of the Committee on Operations Research of the U.S. National Research Council.

Selected publications

*with E. B. Zeisler: * * * reprint of first printed as

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Levinson, Horace Clifford 1895 births 1968 deaths University of Chicago alumni American operations researchers