Hill Climbing
A mathematical optimization technique where an iterative algorithm starts with an arbitrary solution to a problem, then attempts to find a better solution by making an incremental change to the solution. If the change produces a better solution, another incremental change is made to the new solution, and so on until no further improvements can be found.
Origin
Marvin Minsky was the first to name the technique in his 1961 survey "Steps Toward Artificial Intelligence" published in Proceedings of the IRE, defining it as maximising a success function by moving in the direction of steepest improvement until no better state remains. The underlying approach had already appeared unnamed in Allen Newell and Herbert Simon's 1957 General Problem Solver, which iterated toward goals by means-ends analysis.