Warm Up 

 
How many Hamiltonian Cycles are there in the following graphs?  
For the rst three, list as many as you can. 
 
K n   

 
 
   
 
 
 
Try to nd the cheapest (lowest total weight) Hamiltonian Cycles in the following graphs. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Why is this process di cult? 
 
 
Read up on the history of the Traveling Salesman problem here.  
 
Enumerate the di culties in nding a solution to the Travelling Salesman problem for this graph: 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
While nding a direct solution is often not possible, we can make some bounds on what the TSP solution would 
be. Suppose we had the TSP solution, a Hamiltonian cycle, and we deleted an edge. What would result? 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Delete a vertex and its associated edges to nd a lower bound for the TSP problem on this graph. 

 
Find an upper bound by inspection, or by the nearest-neighbor algorithm: