Shortest Path Problem

In graph theory, the shortest path problem is the problem of finding a path between two vertices (or nodes) in a graph such that the sum of the weights of its constituent edges is minimized.

This is analogous to the problem of finding the shortest path between two intersections on a road map: the graph's vertices correspond to intersections and the edges correspond to road segments, each weighted by the length of its road segment.

Read more about Shortest Path Problem:  Definition, Algorithms, Roadnetworks, Applications, Related Problems, Linear Programming Formulation

Famous quotes containing the words shortest, path and/or problem:

    “The Gettysburg speech is at once the shortest and the most famous oration in American history. Put beside it, all the whoopings of the Websters, Sumners and Everetts seem gaudy and silly. It is eloquence brought to a pellucid and almost gem-like perfection—the highest emotion reduced to a few poetical phrases.”
    —H.L. (Henry Lewis)

    “Today brings the sad, glad tidings that Mrs. Abraham Lincoln has passed from that darkness which had fallen upon her path through this life, out into the light and joy of that life toward which her vision has so long been strained.
    Modern education is lethal to children.... We stuff them with mathematics, we pummel them with science, and we use them up before their time.”
    —HonorĂ© De Balzac (1799–1850)

    “Congress seems drugged and inert most of the time. ...Its idea of meeting a problem is to hold hearings or, in extreme cases, to appoint a commission.”
    —Shirley Chisholm (b. 1924)