A Trade-Off of the Schema Theorem

For years the schema theorem has been a principal mathematical foundation for Genetic Algorithms. This article briefly describes a trade-off involving crossover and mutation with respect to schema length. The one-max function, a variant of it, and finding snakes in hypercubes are used to demonstrate this trade-off, looking at the impact on solution quality solution and number of function evaluations required when the schema theorem trade-off is violated.