Edsger W. Dijkstra 2026-10-24
Computer scientist associated with the Dijkstra algorithm.
Portrait of Edsger W. Dijkstra
. Hamilton Richards. CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Source.The Dijkstra algorithm finalises vertices in the order . After finalising , tentative distances to are . Finalising sets the distance to to . Finalising sets the distance to to . Finalising improves the distance to to ; its edge to proposes and causes no improvement. The final distance vector in vertex order is . All weights are positive, so every finalisation is justified by the usual label-setting shortest-path algorithm invariant. The method is named for Edsger W. Dijkstra.
