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Fitness Function

1. A way to describe the dynamics of gene or genotype frequencies in populations of reproducing individuals. The fitness function measures the (potential for) reproductive success of any individual in a given environment.

2. A synonym for objective function.

(Note: A Genetic Algorithm is an optimization algorithm that makes use of a population of artificially reproducing test solutions and works by enforcing the condition that the fitness function, in sense 1, for this population is equal to the objective function. Note that the objective function is input to the genetic algorithm, while process of forcing the fitness function, in sense 1, to be equal to the objective function is a part of the algorithm itself. Because of the wide-spread popularity of genetic algorithms, the term fitness function has taken on the same meaning as the term objective function.)

Editor(s): Erik

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