White blood cells & the pursuit of perfection

Today, I came across a blog on Wired Science – “White Blood Cells Solve Traveling-Salesman Problem”.  While some of the best mathematical minds have been tackling the traveling-salesman problem for decades and some have found efficient solutions, no one has figured out how to completely solve the puzzle. For a given number of cities, a traveling salesman must plan a route that visits each city once, covering the minimum possible overall distance. For any practical tour schedule of even eight to ten cities, fancy algorithms and serious computing power are usually needed.  Rachel goes on and explains that “these cells […]