Informed (Heuristic) Search

Simulated Annealing (SA) is an optimization algorithm inspired by the annealing process in metallurgy, where materials are heated and slowly cooled to reach a stable state with minimal energy. It is used to find approximate solutions to optimization problems by iteratively exploring potential solutions and occasionally accepting worse solutions to escape local optima.
The goal in this example here is to find the minimum point of a complex function with several local minima. It animates the optimization process step-by-step, showing accepted/rejected solutions, energy and temperature changes, and tracks the best-found solution. The goal is to illustrate how simulated annealing works through interactive visuals and graphs.