What is TSP?
The travelling salesman problem (TSP) is a problem in discrete or combinatorial optimization. It is a prominent illustration of a class of problems in computational complexity theory which are classified as NP-hard.
Imagine you are a salesperson and have to visit a number of customers. However, you want to spend as little time as possible driving. If you only have to visit two or three locations, it is usually easy to find the optimal route. You can use regular map services such as Google Maps, Yahoo! Maps or MapQuest to find the shortest path between two places. However, as the number of locations to visit grows, the task of finding the order in which to visit the locations becomes daunting.
