It was in the middle of the 1980s, when the seminal paper by Kar markar opened a new epoch in nonlinear optimization. The importance of this paper, containing a new polynomial-time algorithm for linear op timization problems, was not only in its complexity bound. At that time, the most surprising feature of this algorithm was that the theoretical pre diction of its high efficiency was supported by excellent computational results. This unusual fact dramatically changed the style and direc tions of the research in nonlinear optimization. Thereafter it became more and more common that the new...

The first elementary exposition of core ideas of complexity theory for convex optimization, this book explores optimal methods and lower complexity bounds for smooth and non-smooth convex optimization. Also covers polynomial-time interior-point methods.