Years ago, I remember hearing about a book about problems that are either unsolvable or so difficult that it would take a supercomputer millions of years to work through. I think one problem mentioned in the book is the traveling salesman. Does anyone happen to know the title, as I can't recall it.

May it be this: Unsolved Problems in Number Theory (Problem Books in Mathematics, 1): Guy, Richard: 9780387208602: Amazon.com: Books

1 hour ago, Alfred001 said:

Years ago, I remember hearing about a book about problems that are either unsolvable or so difficult that it would take a supercomputer millions of years to work through. I think one problem mentioned in the book is the traveling salesman. Does anyone happen to know the title, as I can't recall it.

https://people.idsia.ch/~luca/acs-bio97.pdf

8 hours ago, Genady said:

May it be this: Unsolved Problems in Number Theory (Problem Books in Mathematics, 1): Guy, Richard: 9780387208602: Amazon.com: Books

I think it wasn't exclusively math problems, it was more general and aimed at a popular audience.

I remember this one, geared for a popular audience:

https://www.amazon.com/Five-Biggest-Unsolved-Problems-Science/dp/0471268089

But it doesn't have math problems like the traveling salesman.

 

For really tough questions, there are the Millennium Prize problems.  Could be a book on those?

On 4/9/2023 at 10:17 PM, TheVat said:

I remember this one, geared for a popular audience:

https://www.amazon.com/Five-Biggest-Unsolved-Problems-Science/dp/0471268089

But it doesn't have math problems like the traveling salesman.

 

For really tough questions, there are the Millennium Prize problems.  Could be a book on those?

Not that one, either. The theme of this book was more the limits of knowledge/reason. It was about questions we can't or might not be able to answer due to limitations of reason or time or what we can know. Something along those lines.

One of these ?

 

Quote

In Pursuit of the Traveling Salesman – Mathematics at the Limits of Computation Hardcover – 6 Jan. 2012

by William J. Cook (Author)

 

Quote

Softcover edition
Author	Ian Stewart
Language	English
Subject	Mathematics
Genre	Non-fiction
Publisher	Profile Books
Publication date	March 1, 2013[1]
Media type	Print, e-book
Pages	320 pp.
ISBN	1846681995

The Great Mathematical Problems^{[note 1]} is a 2013 book by Ian Stewart. It discusses fourteen^[1] mathematical problems and is written for laypersons.^[2] The book has received positive reviews.

Content

Stewart describes important open or recently closed problems in mathematics:

• Goldbach's conjecture
• Squaring the circle
• Four colour theorem
• Kepler's conjecture
• Mordell's conjecture
• Fermat's Last Theorem
• Three-body problem
• Riemann hypothesis
• Poincare conjecture
• P versus NP problem
• Navier–Stokes equation
• Mass gap
• Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer conjecture
• Hodge conjecture

 

Possibly this one -

 

Of course as an Australian the use of "black swan" for the highly improbable seems to miss the mark - (an Australian swan) -

Edited April 10, 20232 yr by Ken Fabian

On 4/9/2023 at 5:53 AM, Alfred001 said:

Years ago, I remember hearing about a book about problems that are either unsolvable or so difficult that it would take a supercomputer millions of years to work through. I think one problem mentioned in the book is the traveling salesman. Does anyone happen to know the title, as I can't recall it.

Bible. 

On 4/10/2023 at 11:54 PM, studiot said:

One of these ?

 

 

 

I don't think it's the first one and it's almost certainly not the second one.

On 4/10/2023 at 11:57 PM, Ken Fabian said:

Possibly this one -

 

Of course as an Australian the use of "black swan" for the highly improbable seems to miss the mark - (an Australian swan) -

Nope, wasn't the Black Swan.

 

I don't know if this helps at all, but I learned of the book because the author appeared on the great Bloggingheads.tv website (this was many years ago) to talk about it. I'm pretty sure he was interviewed by the science writer George Johnson (who used to be a regular) on a podcast, but I can't recall the author's name.