One of the most fruitful notion of generalized solution in optimization and combinatoricsis linear programming relaxation. Quoting from the wikipedea article: In mathematics, the linear programming relaxation of a 0-1 integer program is the problem that arises by replacing the constraint that each variable must be 0 or 1 by a weaker constraint, that each variable belong to the interval [0,1].

One of the most fruitful notion of generalized solution in optimization and combinatorics is linear programming relaxation. Quoting from the wikipedia article: In mathematics, the linear programming relaxation of a 0-1 integer program is the problem that arises by replacing the constraint that each variable must be 0 or 1 by a weaker constraint, that each variable belong to the interval [0,1].