When two population members mate, they produce one offspring that has some information from each parent. This exchange can produce a trial solution that is better than either of the parent solutions. Better solutions are more likely to mate and spread their genes throughout the population. Once a new population of trial solutions has been created, some of the offspring undergo mutation. During mutation, individual values in a trial solution are changed.
Mutation is an important step because it introduces new values.
If mutation did not take place, some potentially good trial solutions would never be found because not all possible solutions are represented in the initial population. Hill climbing is a part of mutation process where key values continue mutating if the mutations introduce improvement. After mating and mutation are completed, the new trial solutions replace the old ones if they are better. In this fashion, the solution to the problem improves with each new cycle of mating and mutation. A demo version of this program is available on the demos page .