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From: landman@hanami.Eng.Sun.COM (Howard A. Landman)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.neural-nets
Subject: Re: simulated annealing vs genetic algs.
Keywords: simulated annealing, genetic algorithms
Message-ID: <2021@exodus.Eng.Sun.COM>
Date: 3 Nov 90 02:53:05 GMT
References: <1990Oct31.172833.18197@ecn.purdue.edu>
Sender: news@exodus.Eng.Sun.COM
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Mt. View, Ca.
Lines: 19

In article <1990Oct31.172833.18197@ecn.purdue.edu> androula@cb.ecn.purdue.edu (Ioannis Androulakis) writes:
>   If this is so, how legitimate is it to use a convergence
>   result, derived for discrete state transitions, to problems
>   where the state transitions are performed in a continous
>   space ? Or, in other words, how can we prove convergence of
>   continuous SA ?

As long as you're using a digital computer, it has only finitely
many (discrete) values for floating point numbers.  QED  (Unless
you're using arbitrary precision arithmetic.)

>   3) Are you aware of any applications of simulated annealing
>   to constrained non-linear optimization ?

Standard cell (or gate array) placement.  E.g., Timberwolf.

--
	Howard A. Landman
	landman@eng.sun.com -or- sun!landman