Project's Goal |
Project's Relation to Physics |
The goal of using Dijkstra's algorithm is to find the shortest path between two nodes, or vertices, of a given shape. Basically, it uses a start and end point on an object, usually a very odd, and weirdly shaped one, and it will trace, or find, the shortest path between those two points, given distances between all the vertices. For more clarification, read the previous section again after viewing the polygon-like figure on the 'Visuals' tab of this lab. In this case, I will be using the coding language, Java, and it's application, Eclipse, to find the aforementioned 'shortest path,' which is another name of the algorithm. In this operation, the main goal is to program the algorithm in such a way that someone else may simply change one character (from 1 to 2 to 3... so on to 6), and the execution of the program will return the shortest path of that one vertex to the other five, while listing the specific path it took to get there. The following pages include visuals that explain this phenomenon.
|
Dijkstra's algorithm is spoken with in many fields, and among these are physics, a field Edsger Dijkstra himself nearly went into before he changed his mind and went into computer science, a decision whose ripples are still felt today. In fact, it is an algorithm programmed into your GPS to help you travel (insert wherever you plan on going) without getting lost. In mathematics (and/or geography), the basic answer can be of a picture of a country with its' cities, and the question at hand would become of what the shortest path between City A and City E is. However, in physics, this problem can be expanded further. In this status report done by UGA researchers, a topic at hand discussed at a workshop was that of the paths that bacteria take to 'crossover' between weak and strong disorder limits of a colony of bacteria, and sure enough, they used Dijkstra's algorithm and cited it as a model that does not have the restrictions of other bacterial population models.
|