In pursuit of the traveling salesman : mathematics at the limits of computation 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 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 salesmans trail in the 1800s when Irish mathematician W. R. Hamilton first defined the problem and venturing to the furthest limits of todays 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 ...