Changes

The purpose of this page is to describe the notion of temperature scheduling in simulated annealing.  The type of temperature schedule used in one's algorithm and the size and difficulty of ''terrain'' of the search space have connections to the convergence properties of ones algorithm.  These topics are also considered briefly below, with an emphasis on ''the diamond problem''.  Additionally, prospective temperature scheduling strategies are also proposed, which will serve as a backbone to potential simulated annealing runs in the near future.   

The purpose of this page is to describe the notion of temperature scheduling in simulated annealing.  The type of temperature schedule used in one's algorithm and the size and difficulty of ''terrain'' of the search space have connections to the convergence properties of ones algorithm.  These topics are also considered briefly below, with an emphasis on ''the diamond problem''.  Additionally, prospective temperature scheduling strategies are also proposed, which will serve as a backbone to potential simulated annealing runs in the near future.   

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==Difficulty of the problem==

==Difficulty of the Problem==

The size and ''terrain'' of a particular search space are two concepts that one should include when speaking of the difficulty of a search space.  The computing time drastically increases with the size (or dimensionality) of  search space [[#References|[1]]].  However, it is still possible to have higher dimensional problems that are unimodal or have very few local minima.  Thus, one must also take into account the shape of search space when contemplating the difficulty.

The size and ''terrain'' of a particular search space are two concepts that one should include when speaking of the difficulty of a search space.  The computing time drastically increases with the size (or dimensionality) of  search space [[#References|[1]]].  However, it is still possible to have higher dimensional problems that are unimodal or have very few local minima.  Thus, one must also take into account the shape of search space when contemplating the difficulty.