Dijkstra's Shortest Path

Edsger W. Dijkstra, 1956

Conceived by Edsger W. Dijkstra in 1956 while thinking about the shortest route between two cities, this algorithm builds a shortest-path tree one node at a time. Starting from a source, it repeatedly selects the unvisited node with the smallest tentative distance, marks it as visited, and relaxes all its edges. The visualization shows nodes colored by state: gray (unvisited), gold (currently processing), teal (visited), and coral (final shortest path).