In mathematics and computer science, optimization, or mathematical programming, refers to choosing the best element from some set of available alternatives.
In the simplest case, this means solving problems in which one seeks to minimize or maximize a real function by systematically choosing the values of real or integer variables from within an allowed set. This formulation, using a scalar, real-valued objective function, is probably the simples...
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In mathematics and computer science, optimization, or mathematical programming, refers to choosing the best element from some set of available alternatives.
In the simplest case, this means solving problems in which one seeks to minimize or maximize a real function by systematically choosing the values of real or integer variables from within an allowed set. This formulation, using a scalar, real-valued objective function, is probably the simplest example; the generalization of optimization theory and techniques to other formulations comprises a large area of applied mathematics. More generally, it means finding "best available" values of some objective function given a defined domain, including a variety of different types of objective functions and different types of domains.
The first optimization technique, which is known as steepest descent, goes back to Gauss. Historically, the first term to be introduced was linear programming, which was invented by George Dantzig in the 1940s....
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