This book contains most of the invited contributions to the Heidelberg Colloquium on Glassy Dynamics, held in June 1986 and covering the three topics: spin glasses, optimization and neural networks. It includes experimental papers on spin glasses and glasses as well as theoretical work on the spin-glass transition, the description of the spin-glass phase, and slow relaxation phenomena. New techniques for solving combinatorial optimization problems are presented with particular emphasis placed on simulated annealing. Finally, a comprehensive review of the statistical mechanics of neural networks is given. The thorough and partly review-like treatment of the various topics makes this book indispensable reading for researchers and graduate students in physics, biophysics and optimization with special interest in magnetic systems, glasses and brain research, repectively. Nweiterlesen