Definition
Simulated Annealing
Simulated annealing is a modified version of hill-climbing that allows some “bad” moves to escape local extremes, but gradually decreases their size and frequency.
It corresponds to “cooling off” process of materials (value = energy , schedule of temperatures). See Boltzman distribution.
Pseudo Code
function SIMULATED-ANNEALING(problem, schedule) returns a solution state
current problem.INITIAL
for t = 1 to do
T schedule(t)
if T = 0 then return current
next a randomly selected successor of current
VALUE(current) - VALUE(next)
if then current next
else current next only with probability