It's nice to see "tropical geometry" get a mention. This is closely related to Dijkstra's algorithm, min-sum message passing, etc.

I came here to ask if "tropical geometry" was really a thing or just a typo. Thanks for confirming it's an actual thing.

It's a real thing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropical_geometry

I didn't understand much beyond what zeta values are, but have to say that that illustration opening the article is awesome.

If you get a 404 on the link (like I did), click on Mathematics at the top, then on the article.