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Sunday, September 16, 2001

By Frank Reeves, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

Shortly after Carnegie Mellon University mathematics professor Egon Balas immigrated to the United States in 1966, a colleague at the university gave him a card listing his constitutional rights if he were ever arrested: the right to remain silent, to be represented by a lawyer, to have an open, public trial.

	Carnegie Mellon University mathematics professor Egon Balas in July became the first American to win the EURO Gold Medal from the European Association of Operation Research Societies. Born in Transylvania in 1922, Balas survived the Holocaust before coming to America and finding success in the field of operations research. (Martha Rial, Post-Gazette)

Recalling his bitter experiences in Eastern Europe, Balas said, "I couldn't imagine myself telling the interrogators I would not answer any questions."

Such a response would bring --as he knew too well from his imprisonment under the Nazis and the Romanian Communists -- torture and solitary confinement.

"I have a much more profound appreciation of the freedom we all enjoy in this country than [natural-born] Americans," Balas said recently during an interview at the Squirrel Hill home he shares with his wife, University of Pittsburgh art professor Edith Novi Balas. "I am not saying that America doesn't have its shadowy side. But it is qualitatively better than the rest of the world."

Balas' life is symbolic of the promise and tragedy of 20th century Europe: He was born in 1922 in Transylvania, then a part of Romania. As a Jew, he was a target of the region's deeply ingrained anti-Semitism. His family would perish in the Holocaust.

He later joined the Communist-led resistance to the Nazi occupation of Romania. He was eventually arrested by the Nazis, imprisoned and tortured.

After the Second World War, he was a Romanian diplomat and economist. But he could not escape the tyranny that had engulfed Eastern Europe. He was later expelled from the Communist Party in part because of his espousal of the economic theories of John Maynard Keynes. He had also refused to betray a former Communist Party colleague, who was falsely accused of collaborating with the Nazis during World War II. The incident occurred during one of the famous "show trials" of the Stalin era.

During this time, Balas became a largely self-trained mathematician whose work would later transform the burgeoning field of operations research.

In July, Balas became the first American to win the EURO Gold Medal from the European Association of Operation Research Societies. It's the highest European award given for operations research.

At ceremonies in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, he was honored for 35 years of work in mathematical programming applied to industrial problems.

In the 1970s, he worked with the U.S. government to figure out what should be the optimal size of the nation's strategic oil reserve. This research came in the wake of the Arab oil embargo.

He has also developed mathematical modes that have been key to improving the efficiency of producing flat-rolled steel, a product used in everything from automobiles to washing machines.

It is not hard to imagine that, at the White House and Pentagon this weekend, officials have been using operations research techniques to figure out the best military response to last week's terrorist attacks in Washington and New York.

Indeed, the field of operations research began during World War II, as military planners used mathematical models to plot convoy routes across the North Atlantic that would minimize the exposure of Allied ships to Nazi submarines.

Operations research has applications far beyond the battlefield and the command post. Its techniques have been applied to solving problems in supply-chain management, marketing and sales, and steel production. The development of the computer has refined the research to a degree unimaginable a generation ago.

What has distinguished Balas' work, said CMU professor Michael Trick, is that Balas developed mathematical programs that aid in making "yes/no" and "either/or" decisions.

In the past, techniques had been primarily used to help in considering options, whose outcome had incremental effects.

Trick, the incoming president of the Institute for Operation Research and Management Sciences, said Balas pioneered techniques that help people who are faced with mutually exclusive options to decide whether to proceed with or abandon a project.

Last year, Syracuse University Press published Balas' memoirs: "Will to Freedom, a Personal Journey through Fascism and Communism."

It is an account of his life through age 44, when he, his wife and their daughters immigrated to America.

Now nearing 80, Balas, who still teaches at CMU, reflected on life in Europe: "My earlier life has made me more resilient, tenacious and not prone to giving up.

"I also learned how to judge people better. When you are in trouble, you learn how people behave under difficult circumstances."