Here is a map of the "Optimal Road Trip", which visits major landmarks in every one of the lower 48 states in the US, as solved by a genetic algorithm:
Randy has an awesome blog post about the project, and includes a live version of the map you can interact with! Check it out here, or follow Randy on Twitter for a near-constant stream of awesome data visualization!
Just wanted to comment that this is not actually the shortest path. Bill Cook, who is the world's leading expert on the Traveling Salesman Problem, has posted a shorter path on his website. Moreover, the solution that he has found is provably the shortest path possible (he's offered a $1000 reward to anyone who can find a shorter one, and I'm quite confident no one will). Unfortunately, none of the press surrounding Randal Olson's post has actually picked up on the fact that there is a better solution that can be computed on an iPhone in under a second:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.math.uwaterloo.ca/tsp/usa50/index.html