Patent ID: 7376633

Claim:
A computer system for solving a traveling salesman problem comprising: a memory for storing data and instructions to control flow; a central processing unit for executing instructions and manipulating data stored in the memory; a traveling salesman problem definition stored in said memory specifying cities as nodes on a graph, said city being able to be visited in a sequence of stops defining a path; a configurational density component in said memory, said configurational density component producing a value indicating the combined probability of a specified pair of cities and stops; a configurational activity component stored in said memory, said configurational activity component producing a value indicating whether any allowable path includes a specified pair of cities and stops; a Hamiltonian component stored in said memory, said Hamiltonian component indicating the cost associated with a path including a specified pair of cities and stops; a traveling salesman solution space system comprising said configurational density component, configurational activity component, and Hamiltonian component; a temperature parameter characterizing an entropy associated with said traveling salesman solution space system; an entropic relaxation process stored in said memory for execution by said central processing unit, said entropic relaxation process comprising iterative reduction of said temperature parameter, said reduction of said temperature parameter iteratively reducing said entropy, recalculation of said traveling salesman solution space system based on said reduction of said temperature parameter, said entropic relaxation process producing a state of lower energy defining a set of preferred paths.