In The Pursuit Of The Travelling Salesman

In The Pursuit Of The Travelling Salesman

William J. Cook

Vehicle Routing Problem

Description

A history of the travelling salesman problem and ways people have solves it.

Short Summary

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 sales.

When & Why?

This book, although seems it would be entertaining to read, maybe too didactic to practitioners. If you are reall interested in the origins of TSP and how people have solved it in the past, then I believe this book would interest you. Otherwise, it seems to me that if you are a just a practitioner who would like to walk away with learning something practical, it might be in the later sections of the book. The book also does not come up with any implementable code to solidify the implementation of TSP.

Review: what is good & less good?

As mentioned, it is a good book if you are really interested in the origins of TSP. May not be the best if the goal is to learn a new skill.

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