Richard Ernest Bellman[2] (August 26, 1920 – March 19, 1984) was an American applied mathematician, who introduced dynamic programming in 1953, and made important contributions in other fields of mathematics, such as biomathematics.

[8] Later in life, Richard Bellman's interests began to emphasize biology and medicine, which he identified as "the frontiers of contemporary science".

He was awarded the IEEE Medal of Honor in 1979, "for contributions to decision processes and control system theory, particularly the creation and application of dynamic programming".

In continuous time, the result can be seen as an extension of earlier work in classical physics on the Hamilton–Jacobi equation by William Rowan Hamilton and Carl Gustav Jacob Jacobi.

[13] The curse of dimensionality is an expression coined by Bellman to describe the problem caused by the exponential increase in volume associated with adding extra dimensions to a (mathematical) space.

One implication of the curse of dimensionality is that some methods for numerical solution of the Bellman equation require vastly more computer time when there are more state variables in the value function.