Science News, December 22nd, 1990
Proven path for limiting shortest shortcut
Agony Airlines regularly flies passengers between Salt Lake City and Phoenix and between Phoenix and Los Angeles. The two routes connecting the three cites total 877 miles. However, by adding a hub at Las Vegas and routing all its aircraft through that city, the airline can cut the total length of its routes, now linking four cites, to 859 miles.
This hypothetical example, with its somewhat surprising result, embodies a longstanding mathematical strategy for shortening a network of lines connecting a given set of points: Adding extra points and es...
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