Local Minima

A local minima is a point in a landscape of many possible solutions where a function's value is lower than all its nearby points, but not necessarily the lowest overall. Imagine hiking in a hilly terrain; a local minimum is like a small valley that you might reach if you only look around locally. While you may be at the lowest point in that small area, there could be a deeper valley elsewhere. In optimization, algorithms aim to find the global minimum—the absolute lowest point—but can sometimes get stuck in these smaller, local dips.