Lineynoe programmirovanie-oblast' prikladnoy matematiki, razrabatyvayushchaya teoriyu i chislennye metody resheniya zadach nakhozhdeniya uslovnogo ekstremuma (maksimuma ili minimuma) lineynoy tselevoy funktsii mnogikh peremennykh pri nalichii lineynykh ogranicheniy.K zadacham lineynogo programmirovaniya privoditsya shirokiy krug voprosov planirovaniya ekonomicheskikh i tekhnicheskikh protsessov, gde stavitsya zadacha poiska nailuchshego (optimal'nogo) resheniya. Slovo "programmirovanie" ob"yasnyaetsya tem, chto nabor peremennykh, podlezhashchikh nakhozhdeniyu, obychno opredelyaet programmu (plan) raboty nekotorogo ekonomicheskogo ob"ekta. Naryadu s traditsionnym izlozheniem matematicheskikh metodov resheniya tipovykh ekonomicheskikh zadach, v posobii podrobno izlozhena metodika resheniya mnogomernykh ekonomicheskikh zadach na komp'yutere s ispol'zovaniem MS Excel pri pomoshchi optimizatsionnoy programmy "Poisk resheniya,"chto mozhet pomoch' ne tol'ko studentam i prepodavatelyam ekonomicheskikh fakul'tetov v uchebnom protsesse, no i planovo-ekonomicheskim rabotnikam v ikh proizvodstvennoy deyatel'nosti.