the Traveling Salesman Problem
(MATHEMATICS). Der Handlungsreisende wie er sein soll und was er zu thun hat, um Aufträge zu erhalten und eines glücklichen Erfolgs in seinen Beschäften gewiß zu sein. Von einem alten Commis-Voyageur.
Ilmenau: Bernhard Friedrich Voigt, 1832
12mo. Engraved frontispiece. Contemporary half sheep. Light wear and foxing. Original wrappers bound in. Very good.
FIRST EDITION of “The Traveling Salesman: what he should be like and what he has to do to obtain orders and to be assured of successful business.” This anonymously authored, pocket-sized volume presents advice on travel and salesmanship.
This is the earliest description of the ‘Traveling Salesman Problem,’ one of the most significant and most studied problems in mathematics, operations research and computer science. It discusses the optimal route for commercial tours around Germany and Switzerland, giving suggested itineraries to achieve the shortest possible route for visiting various towns and cities without making the same stop twice. While not handled mathematically, this is the earliest known work to present what is now famously known as the “Traveling Salesman Problem” in combinatorial optimization, a problem central to the field of theoretical computer science (see Schrijver). The discussion of the TSP, as it is now widely known, begins on page 188.
The Traveling Salesman Problem has captured the attention of generations of mathematicians, becoming especially widely known with the rise of electronic computing. Stated simply as “given n cities and their distances apart, find the shortest route visiting each city exactly once,” the TSP has become one of the most studied problems and a benchmark in operations research and optimization. Its many applications include DNA sequencing, astronomy, microchip manufacture, telecommunications, warehouse management, route planning and logistics, and robotics and automation.
VERY RARE. WorldCat locates only two copies (Harvard’s Kress Collection and the Herzogin Anna Amalia Bibliothek in Weimar, Germany).
Schrijver, “On the History of Combinatorial Optimization (till 1960)” in Handbooks in Operations Research and Management Science 12 (2005), pp. 1–57.
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