Exactly, the 'genetic' part of the term implies some sort of breeding, not that you can transform your search space into a vector which you call a genome. In f

Exactly, the 'genetic' part of the term implies some sort of breeding, not that you can transform your search space into a vector which you call a genome. In fact, the algorithm used seems to be exactly what is described on the wikipedia for 'Random Optimization' [1]. I would expect that a true GA might work better, but not be the best choice. In my semi-related experience, Particle Swarm Optimization [2] works much better for continuous valued problems. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Random_optimization http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Random_optimization [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Particle_swarm_optimization http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Particle_swarm_optimization