Annealing

Annealing is the name for a number of processes that change the properties of a piece of work using heat. In general the piece is heated to a certain temperature, and modelled while it cools off. Specifically, annealing can refer to:
Annealing (metallurgy) when metals are treated
Annealing (glass) when a piece of glass is heated to remove stress
Nucleic acid thermodynamics when DNA-like structures are changed
Simulated annealing is a method of combinatorial optimization to find the optimum of a function
Quantum annealing is another method of combinatorial optimization