000 02481cam a22002414a 4500
008 110826s2012 njuab b 001 0 eng
020 _a9780691152707
020 _a0691152705
040 _aSDU
050 0 0 _aQA164
_bC771 I 2012
100 1 _aCook, William,
_9192981
245 1 0 _aIn pursuit of the traveling salesman :
_bmathematics at the limits of computation /
_cWilliam J. Cook.
260 _aPrinceton, N.J. :
_bPrinceton University Press,
_c2012.
300 _a228 p. :
_bill.
505 _aHKBU library
518 _aYT2025 M10
520 _a"What is the shortest possible route for a traveling salesman seeking to visit each city on a list exactly once and return to his city of origin? It sounds simple enough, yet the traveling salesman problem is one of the most intensely studied puzzles in applied mathematics--and it has defied solution to this day. In this book, William Cook takes readers on a mathematical excursion, picking up the salesman's trail in the 1800s when Irish mathematician W. R. Hamilton first defined the problem, and venturing to the furthest limits of today's state-of-the-art attempts to solve it. Cook examines the origins and history of the salesman problem and explores its many important applications, from genome sequencing and designing computer processors to arranging music and hunting for planets. He looks at how computers stack up against the traveling salesman problem on a grand scale, and discusses how humans, unaided by computers, go about trying to solve the puzzle. Cook traces the salesman problem to the realms of neuroscience, psychology, and art, and he also challenges readers to tackle the problem themselves. The traveling salesman problem is--literally--a $1 million question. That's the prize the Clay Mathematics Institute is offering to anyone who can solve the problem or prove that it can't be done. In Pursuit of the Traveling Salesman travels to the very threshold of our understanding about the nature of complexity, and challenges you yourself to discover the solution to this captivating mathematical problem"--Provided by publisher.
520 _a"In Pursuit of the Traveling Salesman covers the history, applications, theory, and computation of the traveling salesman problem right up to state-of-the-art solution machinery"--Provided by publisher.
650 0 _aTraveling salesman problem.
_9192982
650 0 _aComputational complexity.
_9179563
900 _a= C.1 SDU
942 _cGBE
_2lcc
999 _c103907
_d103907