The “Real” Reason Bill Cook Created the TSP App

By now, most people are aware of the latest Internet meme Texts from Hillary which is, by the way, hilarious. You’re also probably aware that Bill Cook created an iPhone App that allows one to solve traveling salesman problems (TSP) on a mobile phone! If you like optimization, you have to give this App a try; and make sure to check out the Traveling Salesman book too!

Inspired by Texts from Hillary I finally figured out the “real” reason why Bill Cook created the App. Here it is:

Operations Research Memes

In the spirit of bringing awareness about O.R. to the masses, I created the memes below. Perhaps they’ll gain some traction or at least get a few people to wonder about what O.R. is. Who knows, they may even motivate someone to Google the term! If you end up making your own O.R.-inspired meme, please send me a link to it via the comments section. To create mine, I used the quickmeme.com web site.

UPDATE: A few other OR bloggers and tweeps joined the meme crusade! Here are their creations (in chronological order of my becoming aware of them):

Laura McLay created the memes below:

Michael Trick created these:

Paul Rubin suggested the creation of this one:

Guido Diepen created this one:

Bill Cook made this cool TSP meme:

Paul Rubin made this one, western style:

My MBA student William Bucciero got inspired by these O.R. memes and made some of his own. He was kind enough to share them with me. I think he did a great job! Here they are:

Another one of my MBA students, Jason Siem, also joined the O.R. meme bandwagon. Here’s one of his (pretty funny and true):