The Traveling Salesman Problem Explained

There's a math problem so simple to state, yet so hard to solve, that you'd win a million dollars

for cracking it. It's called the Traveling Salesman Problem. Imagine you have

a list of cities to visit. What's the absolute shortest route that hits every city

once and brings you back home? Sounds easy, right? But for just 20

cities, there are over two quadrillion possible routes. A supercomputer

would take ages to check them all. This isn't just a puzzle; companies like FedEx use it

to optimize delivery routes, and it's even applied in DNA sequencing.