Combinatorial optimization <!-- synonymous or subfield?: discrete optimization--> is a topic that consists of finding an optimal object from a finite set of objects. In many such problems, exhaustive search is not tractable. It operates on the domain of those optimization problems in which the set of feasible solutions is discrete or can be reduced to discrete, and in which the goal is to find the best solution. Typical problems are the travelling salesman problem ("TSP"), the minimum spanning tree problem ("MST"), and the knapsack problem. | Combinatorial optimization <!-- synonymous or subfield?: discrete optimization--> is a topic that consists of finding an optimal object from a finite set of objects. In many such problems, exhaustive search is not tractable. It operates on the domain of those optimization problems in which the set of feasible solutions is discrete or can be reduced to discrete, and in which the goal is to find the best solution. Typical problems are the travelling salesman problem ("TSP"), the minimum spanning tree problem ("MST"), and the knapsack problem. |