Where does this come from, and can I check it?

Edsger Dijkstra designed his graph routing method in 1956 at a cafe table, without pen or paper. The figure is taken from Britannica, which is linked in full on this page. Every fact on Mondo Knows names its source rather than repeating an unsourced claim.

Is this really a technology fact?

Yes. It sits on the Technology shelf, one of 2,600 sourced facts grouped into space, animals, the human body, history, science and more. Category pages collect every fact in the same field.

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The links under the fact point to a quiz, game, puzzle or calculator on the same subject, and the shelf below shows related facts. The wording here is original, and quoted phrases are marked as quotations.

Mondo Knows Facts

Dijkstra worked out shortest paths in twenty minutes

Edsger Dijkstra designed his graph routing method in 1956 at a cafe table, without pen or paper Dijkstra was wondering how to find the shortest route between two Dutch cities and saw that repeatedly settling the nearest unsettled point solves it. He published the method in 1959, and it still underlies route planning in navigation software. Later variants, including A star search, make it fast enough for continental road networks. It sits in Mondo's technology collection, one of 200 facts that each trace back to the reference below.

Where this comes from

Britannica

Facts that can change over time are reviewed and updated. If something here looks wrong, Mondo would rather know than be confidently incorrect.

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Tags: algorithms, routing, computing-history

Dijkstra worked out shortest paths in twenty minutes: the short answers

Where does this come from, and can I check it?: Edsger Dijkstra designed his graph routing method in 1956 at a cafe table, without pen or paper. The figure is taken from Britannica, which is linked in full on this page. Every fact on Mondo Knows names its source rather than repeating an unsourced claim.
Is this really a technology fact?: Yes. It sits on the Technology shelf, one of 2,600 sourced facts grouped into space, animals, the human body, history, science and more. Category pages collect every fact in the same field.
What else can I read about it?: The links under the fact point to a quiz, game, puzzle or calculator on the same subject, and the shelf below shows related facts. The wording here is original, and quoted phrases are marked as quotations.