Level set methods for finding critical points of mountain pass type

Computing mountain passes is a standard way of finding critical points. We describe a numerical method for finding critical points that is convergent in the nonsmooth case and locally superlinearly convergent in the smooth finite dimensional case. We apply these techniques to describe a strategy for addressing the Wilkinson problem of calculating the distance from a matrix to a closest matrix with repeated eigenvalues. Finally, we relate critical points of mountain pass type to nonsmooth and metric critical point theory.