In pursuit of the traveling salesman
by William Cook · first published 2012
71% recommend29% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Well-regarded, readable account of the traveling salesman problem and the math behind solving it at scale; gives working optimization practitioners an intuitive grasp of concepts they had only applied mechanically.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
"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 th
Affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
Related books
2016–2026Economics : the user's guide
Ha-Joon Chang
Recommended by 11 · mentioned by 1411 recommend · 14 mention11 recommend · 1411 recommend
2009–2022Better
Atul Gawande
Recommended by 12 · mentioned by 1912 recommend · 19 mention12 recommend · 1912 recommend
2011–2026The Way of Zen
Alan Watts
Recommended by 16 · mentioned by 2216 recommend · 22 mention16 recommend · 2216 recommend
2011–2026The origins of political order
Francis Fukuyama
Recommended by 22 · mentioned by 3222 recommend · 32 mention22 recommend · 3222 recommend
2008–2026The Extended Phenotype
Richard Dawkins, Wolfgang Mayer
Recommended by 20 · mentioned by 3620 recommend · 36 mention20 recommend · 3620 recommend
2008–2026Small Is Beautiful
E. F. Schumacher
Recommended by 19 · mentioned by 3519 recommend · 35 mention19 recommend · 3519 recommend
Hermann Hesse
Siddhartha
Recommended by 42 · mentioned by 5442 recommend · 54 mention42 recommend · 5442 recommend
2014–2025Grokking Algorithms
Aditya Y. Bhargava
Recommended by 42 · mentioned by 5942 recommend · 59 mention42 recommend · 5942 recommend
In Pursuit of the Traveling Salesman: Mathematics at the Limits of Computation by William J. Cook. Combinatorial optimization is very important for many practical problems and increase in computational power and improvement in algorithms…
on “Ask HN: Books with a high signal to noise ratio?” ↗In Pursuit of the Traveling Salesman: Mathematics at the Limits of Computation -- William J. Cook
on “Ask HN: Which book can attract anyone towards your field of study?” ↗In Pursuit of the Traveling Salesman: Mathematics at the Limits of Computation ISBN-13: 978-0691152707, ISBN-10: 0691152705 I've worked in optimization for over a decade but this book gave me an intuitive sense of many concepts that I…
on “Ask HN: Do you recall any book or course that made a topic finally click?” ↗If you are interested in the Traveling Salesman problem, I recommend William J. Cook's excellent "In Pursuit of the Traveling Salesman."
on “The Traveling Salesman Problem: A Neural Network Perspective (1993) [pdf]” ↗…also the classic book "Combinatorial Optimization - Algorithms and Complexity" [4] by Papadimitriou (Bill Gates' MSc thesis supervisor) and Steiglitz that is a nice introduction to the topic as well. "In Pursuit of the Traveling Salesman - Mathematics at the Limits of Computation" by William J. Cook [5] is a more popular science book on the history of the Traveling Salesman Problem, that also explains how linear programming is used in…
on “Ask HN: Literature for mathematical optimization?” ↗Agreed! I also recommend Grokking Algorithms for a friendly overview. There are also some great topic-specific books, such as Who's #1? and In Pursuit of the Traveling Salesman.
on “Introduction to Algorithms: A Creative Approach by Udi Manber [pdf]” ↗It can, see eg Bill Cook's "in pursuit of the traveling salesman." I've also wondered how this approximation algorithm relates to the standard asymmetric to symmetric transformation. I should read the paper I guess.
on “One-Way Salesman Finds Fast Path Home” ↗…origin city? It is an NP-hard problem in combinatorial optimization, important in operations research and theoretical computer science. So you can see it is related the the P vs. NP problem! In the book, In Pursuit of the Traveling Salesman: Mathematics at the Limits of Computation by William J. Cook, it states: "Selecting the best tour through a set of points and knowing it is the best is the full challenge of the TSP. Users of a brute-force…
on “Travelling Salesman – Official Movie Site” ↗