08.4 Heuristics and Experimentation
8.4 Heuristics and Experimentation A heuristic is a rule of thumb that guides search. It does not guarantee a solution, but it helps decide what to try next. Experimentation is the systematic use of examples, computations, diagrams, and small cases to discover patterns. These methods are useful when the direct route is unclear. A problem may have no obvious theorem to apply. Its structure may be hidden. In that situation,...