CS 4600
Introduction to Intelligent Systems
Project #3
A Graph of the Four Peaks function

In order to help your intuitions about some of the fitness functions in project 3, we present this graph of the Four Peaks problem. The x and y axes represent how many leading ones and trailing zeros there are in a solution, while the z axis represents the fitness:

Notice how as T becomes a larger percentage of N that the part of the space containing the global maxima becomes significantly smaller. The effect is that it becomes less and less likely that one could just fall into it by sheer luck. Six peaks is similar but in more dimensions, which I'd draw except that it would actually make your brains melt, and I've been told I can't do that until I get tenure. Maybe later.