The longest path for land took longer to find needing 45 minutes. Both paths were found with the algorithm running on a normal laptop.

Routing algorithms in VLSI design form the backbone of interconnect synthesis, ensuring that circuit elements are connected efficiently while conforming to strict physical and timing constraints.

While they were at it, they found the longest straight path you could drive without hitting water.

Back in 2012, a Reddit user posted a map claiming to show the longest straight line that could be traversed across the ocean without hitting land.

So instead, they turned to the “branch-and-bound” algorithm, a computer program that tests only a few possibilities of the longest path before tweaking the search again for the best possible line.

The longest straight-line route possible without ever crossing a body of water. The algorithm groups similar paths into the same ‘branch,’ then evaluates the branches against each other.

What would be the longest straight path you could take without hitting land? This question was the focus of a post that sparked much debate back in 2012 on Reddit.