An App That Solves the Famed 'Traveling Salesman Problem'

When he's not designing software for a living, Todd Schneider makes weird and wonderful apps for fun. In his latest effort, if you enter any list of cities—in the U.S. or anywhere in the world—the app will solve the famous "traveling salesman problem", which you may remember from your college math courses. It asks: what's the shortest route, if you're visiting each city exactly once and then returning to the point of origin?

"I don't think there is any practical application (for the app)," Schneider says. It's just something cool for people, especially math students, to play around and have some fun with, he says.