A local (energy) minimum is a stationary point where all such displacements lead to an increase in energy.

Quantum mechanical calculations have also shown that the classical model is not an energy minimum.

The slope of the line is equal to the , where is the distance from the energy minimum to the transition state.

It is also possible to employ mechanisms that search more directly for energy minima, either instead of or in conjunction with physical simulation.

Equilibrium phase compositions are those corresponding to the free energy minima.

Physically, the native state of a protein is the conformational free energy minimum for the chain.

Therefore protein design is the search for sequences which have the chosen structure as a free energy minimum.

The red and blue stars are the stable magnetization directions, corresponding to energy minima.

When the ratio differs from 1, then the energy minimum is higher (Figure 3).

In this meta-model, called an energy surface, a right answer becomes an energy minimum, or a valley at the bottom of a hill.