How Many Possible Routes in the Traveling Salesman Problem?

  • Thread starter Thread starter O Great One
  • Start date Start date
  • Tags Tags
    Formula
AI Thread Summary
The Traveling Salesman Problem (TSP) involves determining the shortest route connecting a set of points. A proposed formula for calculating the total number of unique routes for N points is ((N-1)!*N)/(N*2), which simplifies to (N-1)!/2. For example, with three points, there is one unique route, and with four points, there are three. The discussion suggests that while the formula appears correct, it may not be widely referenced due to its simplicity and limited relevance to the complexity of the TSP. The conversation highlights the NP-completeness of the problem, emphasizing its computational challenges.
O Great One
Messages
98
Reaction score
0
The traveling salesman problem is where you have to figure out the shortest route connecting a group of points out of all possible routes. I haven't seen a general math formula to figure out the total number of possible routes given a set of points so I tried to come up with one myself and here's what I got. Let's say that there's four points and you want to know what the total number of possible different routes there are that will connect all four points. Let's assume that the points are numbered 1, 2, 3, and 4. Then these 8 routes are all the same.
12341 23412 34123 41234
14321 21432 32143 43214

The route inbetween the end points can be sequenced in (N-1)! ways and there are N different beginning and endpoints. But, each sequence has N*2 routes that are equivalent so we must divide by that. So this is what we get where N is the number of points:

((N-1)!*N)/(N*2)

We put in 3 points and we get 1 route.
We put in 4 points and we get 3 routes.

The formula seems to be correct and seems to work but I haven't seen it anywhere. Comments?
 
Mathematics news on Phys.org
Your expression should simplify to (N-1)!/2 and does look correct. Perhaps the reason this is not found anywhere is that it is trivially simple to see and still has no bearing on the problem other than to show that it is NP complete.
 
Suppose ,instead of the usual x,y coordinate system with an I basis vector along the x -axis and a corresponding j basis vector along the y-axis we instead have a different pair of basis vectors ,call them e and f along their respective axes. I have seen that this is an important subject in maths My question is what physical applications does such a model apply to? I am asking here because I have devoted quite a lot of time in the past to understanding convectors and the dual...
Insights auto threads is broken atm, so I'm manually creating these for new Insight articles. In Dirac’s Principles of Quantum Mechanics published in 1930 he introduced a “convenient notation” he referred to as a “delta function” which he treated as a continuum analog to the discrete Kronecker delta. The Kronecker delta is simply the indexed components of the identity operator in matrix algebra Source: https://www.physicsforums.com/insights/what-exactly-is-diracs-delta-function/ by...
Back
Top