![]() ![]() This phenomenon was first observed in 1665 by the Dutch scientist Christiaan Huygens. Similarly, if you set two pendulum clocks on the same surface, no matter when the individual pendula are set into motion, they will eventually be lulled into a synchronized rhythm, reaching their apex at the same time but moving in opposite directions (or out of phase). This principle can be witnessed in the synchrony of nature, like heart cells beating together or schools of fish moving as one. Nature likes to optimize energy, or achieve goals in the most efficient and distributed manner. Thus, researchers have been searching for new ways to build systems designed specifically for optimization. ![]() Finding the absolute optimum solution winds up taking an unreasonably long time when the problem sizes grow." Finding better solutions and doing so in dramatically less time could save industries billions of dollars. "Many of the algorithms that have been devised to find solutions have to trade off solution quality for time. "It has been known for a very long time that digital computers are fundamentally bad at solving these types of problems," says Suraj Bramhavar, also a co-lead author. Yet optimization problems need to be solved in the real world daily the solutions are used to schedule shifts, minimize financial risk, discover drugs, plan shipments, reduce interference on wireless networks, and much more. It may seem simple with only a few cities, but the problem becomes exponentially difficult to solve as the number of cities grows, bogging down even the best supercomputers. The problem asks to find the shortest route a salesperson can take through a number of cities, starting and ending at the same one. Perhaps the most well-known combinatorial optimization problem is that of the traveling salesperson. ![]()
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