DIJKSTRA'S ALGORITHM

By Laksman Veeravagu and Luis Barrera

THE AUTHOR: EDSGER WYBE DIJKSTRA

"Computer Science is no more about computers than

astronomy is about telescopes."

http://www.cs.utexas.edu/~EWD/
EDSGER WYBE DIJKSTRA
- May 11, 1930 – August 6, 2002

- Received the 1972 A. M. Turing Award, widely considered the

most prestigious award in computer science.

- The Schlumberger Centennial Chair of Computer Sciences at

The University of Texas at Austin from 1984 until 2000

- Made a strong case against use of the GOTO statement in

programming languages and helped lead to its deprecation.

- Known for his many essays on programming.

SINGLE-SOURCE SHORTEST PATH PROBLEM

Single-Source Shortest Path Problem - The problem of

finding shortest paths from a source vertex v to all other
vertices in the graph.
DIJKSTRA'S ALGORITHM
Dijkstra's algorithm - is a solution to the single-source
shortest path problem in graph theory.

Works on both directed and undirected graphs. However, all

edges must have nonnegative weights.

Approach: Greedy

Input: Weighted graph G={E,V} and source vertex v∈V, such

that all edge weights are nonnegative

Output: Lengths of shortest paths (or the shortest paths

themselves) from a given source vertex v∈V to all other
vertices
DIJKSTRA'S ALGORITHM - PSEUDOCODE

dist[s]  ←0                      (distance  to  source  vertex  is  zero)  

for    all  v  ∈  V–{s}  
               do    dist[v]  ←∞      (set  all  other  distances  to  infinity)    
S←∅          (S,  the  set  of  visited  vertices  is  initially  empty)    
Q←V            (Q,  the  queue  initially  contains  all  vertices)                                
while  Q  ≠∅        (while  the  queue  is  not  empty)    
do      u  ←  mindistance(Q,dist)  (select  the  element  of  Q  with  the  min.  distance)    
           S←S∪{u}        (add  u  to  list  of  visited  vertices)    
             for  all  v  ∈  neighbors[u]        
                           do    if      dist[v]  >  dist[u]  +  w(u,  v)      (if  new  shortest  path  found)  
                                                 then            d[v]  ←d[u]  +  w(u,  v)  (set  new  value  of  shortest  path)  
   (if  desired,  add  traceback  code)  
return  dist  
 
DIJKSTRA ANIMATED EXAMPLE
DIJKSTRA ANIMATED EXAMPLE
DIJKSTRA ANIMATED EXAMPLE
DIJKSTRA ANIMATED EXAMPLE
DIJKSTRA ANIMATED EXAMPLE
DIJKSTRA ANIMATED EXAMPLE
DIJKSTRA ANIMATED EXAMPLE
DIJKSTRA ANIMATED EXAMPLE
DIJKSTRA ANIMATED EXAMPLE
DIJKSTRA ANIMATED EXAMPLE
IMPLEMENTATIONS AND RUNNING
TIMES
The simplest implementation is to store vertices in an array
or linked list. This will produce a running time of

O(|V|^2 + |E|)

For sparse graphs, or graphs with very few edges and many
nodes, it can be implemented more efficiently storing the
graph in an adjacency list using a binary heap or priority
queue. This will produce a running time of

O((|E|+|V|) log |V|)

DIJKSTRA'S ALGORITHM - WHY IT WORKS

¢ As with all greedy algorithms, we need to make sure that it

is a correct algorithm (e.g., it always returns the right solution
if it is given correct input).

A formal proof would take longer than this presentation, but

¢
we can understand how the argument works intuitively.
DIJKSTRA'S ALGORITHM - WHY IT WORKS
¢ To understand how it works, we’ll go over the
previous example again. However, we need two
mathematical results first:

¢ Lemma 1: Triangle inequality

If δ(u,v)  is  the  shortest  path  length  between  u  and  v,  
 δ(u,v)  ≤  δ(u,x)  +  δ(x,v)    
¢ Lemma 2:
The subpath of any shortest path is itself a shortest
path.

¢ The  key  is  to  understand  why  we  can  claim  that  any?me  we  
put  a  new  vertex  in  S,  we  can  say  that  we  already  know  the  
shortest  path  to  it.  
¢ Now,  back  to  the  example…  
 
DIJKSTRA'S ALGORITHM - WHY USE IT?

¢ As mentioned, Dijkstra’s algorithm calculates

the shortest path to every vertex.
¢ However, it is about as computationally
expensive to calculate the shortest path from
vertex u to every vertex using Dijkstra’s as it is
to calculate the shortest path to some particular
vertex v.
¢ Therefore, anytime we want to know the optimal
path to some other vertex from a determined
origin, we can use Dijkstra’s algorithm.
APPLICATIONS OF DIJKSTRA'S ALGORITHM
- Traffic Information Systems are most prominent use
- Mapping (Map Quest, Google Maps)
- Routing Systems
APPLICATIONS OF DIJKSTRA'S
ALGORITHM
One particularly relevant this
¢
week: epidemiology
¢Prof. Lauren Meyers (Biology
Dept.) uses networks to model the
spread of infectious diseases and
design prevention and response
strategies.
¢ Vertices represent individuals,
and edges their possible contacts.
It is useful to calculate how a
particular individual is connected
to others.
¢Knowing the shortest path
lengths to other individuals can be
a relevant indicator of the
potential of a particular individual
to infect others.
REFERENCES

¢ Dijkstra’s original paper:

E. W. Dijkstra. (1959) A Note on Two Problems in Connection with
Graphs. Numerische Mathematik, 1. 269-271.
¢ MIT OpenCourseware, 6.046J Introduction to Algorithms.
<
http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Electrical-Engineering-and-
Computer-Science/6-046JFall-2005/CourseHome/> Accessed
4/25/09
¢ Meyers, L.A. (2007) Contact network epidemiology: Bond
percolation applied to infectious disease prediction and control.
Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society 44: 63-86.
¢ Department of Mathematics, University of Melbourne. Dijkstra’s
Algorithm.
<
http://www.ms.unimelb.edu.au/~moshe/620-261/dijkstra/
dijkstra.html > Accessed 4/25/09