# What is the One Max Problem in detail?

I am looking a python lib named deap, but stuck at beginning.

The first paragraph says:

The problem is very simple, we search for a 1 filled list individual.

What does 1 filled list means? Search a 1 filled list, from where? individual list or individual 1?

Google One Max Problem only gives some information which seems to be useful:

1. There is a Max One Problem

I can understand this, but is it same as One Max Problem? If so, I have a question that why need evolutionary algorithm to "evolve" our population until eventually the target emerges. ? If I am a Medical Researcher, I should already have the entire DNA(gene list) , what I need to do is just search in that list, not evolve a random list.

2. There is a Maximum_satisfiability_problem

This is understandable too, seems relate to One Max Problem , another saying?

• From your question about Medical Researcher and DNA, it looks like you are expecting to find a library that deals with genetic data of living creatures (you might want this to establish taxonomy or search for correlations between genes and another observation)? Instead you have a found a library that deals with optimisation problems by simulating core ideas from evolution. – Neil Slater Jan 12 '17 at 10:32

deap is an evolutionary algorithm library. In an evolutionary algorithm you usually want to optimize a function. For this, you define individuals as a collection of genes (e.g. a string of numbers) that condense a possible solution, you create a population of such individuals, and define a fitness function to evaluate how good they are; then you apply evolutionary operators (e.g. mutation, pairing) to evolve the population, effectively searching the solution space.