Reply To: !
The problem with the simple method of ‘hill climbing’ as described by Crackerjack_404 is that it may lead you up the wrong ‘hill’! The ‘simulated annealing’ modification where, at least to start with, a change can be accepted even though it does not offer an improvement or even seems to give a poorer yield, will prevent the program heading to a false ‘peak’. The Wikipedia page on the subject gives a comprehensive description of the technique. Several of my students have used this technique to solve various Challenges in the past, especially those involving substitution ciphers. I usually find approximately 1500 iterations are needed in these cases.