Scott Kirkpatrick

Scott Kirkpatrick is known for his work in the field of computer science, particularly in optimization and artificial intelligence. He is credited with the development of simulated annealing, a probabilistic technique that is used for approximating the global optimum of a given function. Simulated annealing mimics the process of annealing in metallurgy, where controlled cooling helps to minimize defects. Kirkpatrick introduced this algorithm in a landmark paper co-authored with Chilean physicist Jorge A.