Presents the findings on one of the most intensely investigated subjects in computational mathematics - the travelling salesman problem. This book describes the method and computer code used to solve a range of large-scale problems, and demonstrates the interplay of applied mathematics with increasi[...]

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 [...]