Statistical exploratory analysis of genetic algorithms: the influence of gray codes upon the difficulty of a problem

An important issue in genetic algorithms is the relationship between the difficulty of a problem and the choice of encoding Two questions remain unanswered: is their a statistically demonstrable relationship between the difficulty of a problem and the choice of encoding, and, if so, what it the actual mechanism by which this occurs? In this paper we use components of a rigorous statistical methodology to demonstrate that the choice of encoding has a real effect upon the difficulty of a problem Computer animation is then used to illustrate the actual mechanism by which this occurs.