2026-07-072026-07-07http://salesiana.dossiersoluciones.com/handle/123456789/31403We consider geometric instances of the Maximum Weighted Matching Problem (MWMP) and the Maximum Traveling Salesman Problem (MTSP) with up to 3,000,000 vertices. Making use of a geometric duality relationship between MWMP, MTSP, and the Fermat-Weber-Problem (FWP), we develop a heuristic approach that yields in near-linear time solutions as well as upper bounds. Using various computational tools, we get solutions within considerably less than 1% of the optimum. An interesting feature of our approach is that, even though an FWP is hard to compute in theory and Edmonds' algorithm for maximum weighted matching yields a polynomial solution for the MWMP, the practical behavior is just the opposite, and we can solve the FWP with high accuracy in order to find a good heuristic solution for the MWMP.20 pages, 14 figures, Latex, to appear in Journal of Experimental Algorithms, 2002Data Structures and AlgorithmsF.2.2; G.2.2Solving a "Hard" Problem to Approximate an "Easy" One: Heuristics for Maximum Matchings and Maximum Traveling Salesman Problemstext