Subj : Re: Travelling Salesman problem -- Finding shortest path in ship warehouse To : comp.programming From : Roger Willcocks Date : Wed Aug 17 2005 12:08 am "Boris" wrote in message news:1124212327.377186.105100@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com... > Thad, > > Can you elaborate more on simulated annealing? Will that give me the > best solution to the problem? > Answering the second part first, no it won't give you the best solution, but it will probably give you a good enough solution. Consider a park filled with hills and valleys. How would you find the deepest point? One way would be to randomly drop footballs and see where they roll to. The more footballs you drop the more likely it is that you'll find one near the bottom. But the only way you can be sure you've got the deepest point is to check out every point in turn. Simulated annealing is essentially the same mechanism: pick a random start point and see how it can be improved by making small, local changes. -- Roger .