In Pursuit of the Traveling Salesman

In Pursuit of the Traveling Salesman PDF Author: William J. Cook
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691163529
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 244

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Book Description
The story of one of the greatest unsolved problems in mathematics 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. He also explores its many important applications, from genome sequencing and designing computer processors to arranging music and hunting for planets. 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.

In Pursuit of the Traveling Salesman

In Pursuit of the Traveling Salesman PDF Author: William J. Cook
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691163529
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 244

Get Book

Book Description
The story of one of the greatest unsolved problems in mathematics 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. He also explores its many important applications, from genome sequencing and designing computer processors to arranging music and hunting for planets. 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.

X and the City

X and the City PDF Author: John A. Adam
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400841690
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 340

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Book Description
What mathematical modeling uncovers about life in the city X and the City, a book of diverse and accessible math-based topics, uses basic modeling to explore a wide range of entertaining questions about urban life. How do you estimate the number of dental or doctor's offices, gas stations, restaurants, or movie theaters in a city of a given size? How can mathematics be used to maximize traffic flow through tunnels? Can you predict whether a traffic light will stay green long enough for you to cross the intersection? And what is the likelihood that your city will be hit by an asteroid? Every math problem and equation in this book tells a story and examples are explained throughout in an informal and witty style. The level of mathematics ranges from precalculus through calculus to some differential equations, and any reader with knowledge of elementary calculus will be able to follow the materials with ease. There are also some more challenging problems sprinkled in for the more advanced reader. Filled with interesting and unusual observations about how cities work, X and the City shows how mathematics undergirds and plays an important part in the metropolitan landscape.

The Traveling Salesman Problem

The Traveling Salesman Problem PDF Author: David L. Applegate
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400841100
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 606

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Book Description
This book presents the latest findings on one of the most intensely investigated subjects in computational mathematics--the traveling salesman problem. It sounds simple enough: given a set of cities and the cost of travel between each pair of them, the problem challenges you to find the cheapest route by which to visit all the cities and return home to where you began. Though seemingly modest, this exercise has inspired studies by mathematicians, chemists, and physicists. Teachers use it in the classroom. It has practical applications in genetics, telecommunications, and neuroscience. The authors of this book are the same pioneers who for nearly two decades have led the investigation into the traveling salesman problem. They have derived solutions to almost eighty-six thousand cities, yet a general solution to the problem has yet to be discovered. Here they describe the method and computer code they used to solve a broad range of large-scale problems, and along the way they demonstrate the interplay of applied mathematics with increasingly powerful computing platforms. They also give the fascinating history of the problem--how it developed, and why it continues to intrigue us.

Death of a Salesman

Death of a Salesman PDF Author: Arthur Miller
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 110104215X
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 146

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Book Description
The Pulitzer Prize-winning tragedy of a salesman’s deferred American dream Ever since it was first performed in 1949, Death of a Salesman has been recognized as a milestone of the American theater. In the person of Willy Loman, the aging, failing salesman who makes his living riding on a smile and a shoeshine, Arthur Miller redefined the tragic hero as a man whose dreams are at once insupportably vast and dangerously insubstantial. He has given us a figure whose name has become a symbol for a kind of majestic grandiosity—and a play that compresses epic extremes of humor and anguish, promise and loss, between the four walls of an American living room. "By common consent, this is one of the finest dramas in the whole range of the American theater." —Brooks Atkinson, The New York Times "So simple, central, and terrible that the run of playwrights would neither care nor dare to attempt it." —Time

50 Visions of Mathematics

50 Visions of Mathematics PDF Author: Dara O' Briain
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191005347
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
Relax: no one understands technical mathematics without lengthy training but we all have an intuitive grasp of the ideas behind the symbols. To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications (IMA), this book is designed to showcase the beauty of mathematics - including images inspired by mathematical problems - together with its unreasonable effectiveness and applicability, without frying your brain. The book is a collection of 50 original essays contributed by a wide variety of authors. It contains articles by some of the best expositors of the subject (du Sautoy, Singh and Stewart for example) together with entertaining biographical pieces and articles of relevance to our everyday lives (such as Spiegelhalter on risk and Elwes on medical imaging). The topics covered are deliberately diverse and involve concepts from simple numerology to the very cutting edge of mathematics research. Each article is designed to be read in one sitting and to be accessible to a general audience. There is also other content. There are 50 pictorial 'visions of mathematics' which were supplied in response to an open call for contributions from IMA members, Plus readers and the worldwide mathematics community. You'll also find a series of "proofs " of Phythagoras's Theorem - mathematical, literary and comedy - after this, you'll never think of Pythagoras the same way again.

The Golden Ticket

The Golden Ticket PDF Author: Lance Fortnow
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691175780
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 188

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Book Description
The P-NP problem is the most important open problem in computer science, if not all of mathematics. Simply stated, it asks whether every problem whose solution can be quickly checked by computer can also be quickly solved by computer. The Golden Ticket provides a nontechnical introduction to P-NP, its rich history, and its algorithmic implications for everything we do with computers and beyond. Lance Fortnow traces the history and development of P-NP, giving examples from a variety of disciplines, including economics, physics, and biology. He explores problems that capture the full difficulty of the P-NP dilemma, from discovering the shortest route through all the rides at Disney World to finding large groups of friends on Facebook. The Golden Ticket explores what we truly can and cannot achieve computationally, describing the benefits and unexpected challenges of this compelling problem.

In Pursuit of Silence

In Pursuit of Silence PDF Author: George Prochnik
Publisher: Anchor
ISBN: 0385533268
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 354

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Book Description
An "elegant and eloquent" (New York Times) exploration of the frontiers of noise and silence, and the growing war between them. Between iPods, music-blasting restaurants, earsplitting sports stadiums, and endless air and road traffic, the place for quiet in our lives grows smaller by the day. In Pursuit of Silence gives context to our increasingly desperate sense that noise pollution is, in a very real way, an environmental catastrophe. Traveling across the country and meeting and listening to a host of incredible characters, including doctors, neuroscientists, acoustical engineers, monks, activists, educators, marketers, and aggrieved citizens, George Prochnik examines why we began to be so loud as a society, and what it is that gets lost when we can no longer find quiet.

Perl Best Practices

Perl Best Practices PDF Author: Damian Conway
Publisher: "O'Reilly Media, Inc."
ISBN: 0596001738
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 542

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Book Description
This book offers a collection of 256 guidelines on the art of coding to help you write better Perl code--in fact, the best Perl code you possibly can. The guidelines cover code layout, naming conventions, choice of data and control structures, program decomposition, interface design and implementation, modularity, object orientation, error handling, testing, and debugging. - Publisher

Five Equations That Changed the World

Five Equations That Changed the World PDF Author: Dr. Michael Guillen
Publisher: Hachette Books
ISBN: 1401304915
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 239

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Book Description
A Publishers Weekly best book of 1995! Dr. Michael Guillen, known to millions as the science editor of ABC's Good Morning America, tells the fascinating stories behind five mathematical equations. As a regular contributor to daytime's most popular morning news show and an instructor at Harvard University, Dr. Michael Guillen has earned the respect of millions as a clear and entertaining guide to the exhilarating world of science and mathematics. Now Dr. Guillen unravels the equations that have led to the inventions and events that characterize the modern world, one of which -- Albert Einstein's famous energy equation, E=mc2 -- enabled the creation of the nuclear bomb. Also revealed are the mathematical foundations for the moon landing, airplane travel, the electric generator -- and even life itself. Praised by Publishers Weekly as "a wholly accessible, beautifully written exploration of the potent mathematical imagination," and named a Best Nonfiction Book of 1995, the stories behind The Five Equations That Changed the World, as told by Dr. Guillen, are not only chronicles of science, but also gripping dramas of jealousy, fame, war, and discovery.

The Traveling Salesman

The Traveling Salesman PDF Author: Gerhard Reinelt
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3540486615
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 223

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Book Description
Still today I am receiving requests for reprints of the book, but unfortunately it is out of print. Therefore, since the book still seems to receive some attention, I p- posed to Springer Verlag to provide a free online edition. I am very happy that Springer agreed. Except for the correction of some typographical errors, the online edition is just a copy of the printed version, no updates have been made. In particular, Table 13.1 gives the status of TSPLIB at the time of publishing the book. For accessing TSPLIB the link http://www.iwr.uni-heidelberg.de/iwr/comopt/software/TSPLIB95/ should be used instead of following the procedure described in Chapter 13. Heidelberg, January 2001 Gerhard Reinelt Preface More than ?fteen years ago, I was faced with the following problem in an assignment for a class in computer science. A brewery had to deliver beer to ?ve stores, and the task was to write a computer program for determining the shortest route for the truck driver to visit all stores and return to the brewery. All my attemps to ?nd a reasonable algorithm failed, I could not help enumerating all possible routes and then select the best one.