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Home/Magazine Archive/September 2023 (Vol. 66, No. 9)/Historic Algorithms Help Unlock Shortest-Path Problem.../Abstract

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Historic Algorithms Help Unlock Shortest-Path Problem Breakthrough

By Chris Edwards
Communications of the ACM, September 2023, Vol. 66 No. 9, Pages 10-12
10.1145/3607866
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connected buildings, illustration — Credit: Andrij Borys Associates, Shutterstock

Computer science pioneer Edsger Dijkstra's algorithms form the backbone of many computer subroutines, thanks to their elegant efficiency. However, seemingly subtle changes in requirements can lead to these often conceptually simple formulations failing to provide an accurate answer. The replacement algorithms provide the correct answers but are frequently orders of magnitude slower.

A recent breakthrough in combinatorial techniques has shown how these early algorithms can be revived.

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