heuristic

As an adjective, heuristic (pronounced hyu-RIS-tik and from the Greek "heuriskein" meaning "to discover") pertains to the process of gaining knowledge or some desired result by intelligent guesswork rather than by following some preestablished formula. (Heuristic can be contrasted with algorithm ic.) The term seems to have two usages: 1) Describing an approach to learning by trying without necessarily having an organized hypothesis or way of proving that the results proved or disproved the hypothesis. That is, "seatof-the-pants" or "trial-by-error" learning. 2) Pertaining to the use of the general knowledge gained by experience, sometimes expressed as "using a rule-of-thumb." (However, heuristic knowledge can be applied to complex as well as simple everyday problems. Human chess players use a heuristic approach.) As a noun, a heuristic is a specific rule-of-thumb or argument derived from experience. The application of heuristic knowledge to a problem is sometimes known as heuristics .

heuristics
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- Heuristics is the application of experience-derived knowledge to a problem and is sometimes used to describe software that screens and filters out messages likely to contain a computer virus or other undesirable content. A heuristic (pronounced hyu-RIS-tik and from the Greek "heuriskein" meaning "to discover") is a "rule-of-thumb." Heuristics software looks for known sources, commonly-used text phrases, and transmission or content patterns that experience has shown to be associated with e-mail containing viruses. Because many companies or users receive a large volume of e-mail and because legitimate e-

mail may also fall into the pattern, heuristics software sometimes results in many "false positives," discouraging its use. Security experts note that, although such software needs to get better, it is a valuable and necessary tool

Heuristic (hjurs.tk) is an adjective for methods that help in problem solving, in turn leading to learning and discovery. These methods in most cases employ experimentation and trial-and-error techniques.

heuristic - a commonsense rule (or set of rules) intended to increase the probability of solving some problem

Adjective (of a method of teaching) allowing students to learn things for themselves by trial and error [Greek heuriskein to discover]

Common Mathematics Problem-Solving Heuristics Trial and Error

Make a Table

Look for a Pattern

Draw a Diagram

Restate the Problem

Compare and Contrast Data

Account for All possibilities

Simplify the Problem

Break Set

Write a Mathematical Sentence

Make a Graph or Table

Make a Model

Work Backward

Work Forward