Heuristics

Essential Question: How is heuristics different than algorithms?

Mastery Objectives: 

• SWBAT differentiate between heuristics and algorithms.

• SWBAT identify if a problem was solved using heuristics.

Wordle: https://www.nytimes.com/games/wordle/index.html 

Try solving today's Wordle. If you have already solved it, try solving worldle: https://worldle.teuteuf.fr/ 

Heuristic is any approach to problem solving or self-discovery that employs a practical method that is not guaranteed to be optimal, perfect, or rational, but is nevertheless sufficient for reaching an immediate, short-term goal or approximation. 

One way to come up with approximate answers to a problem is to use a heuristic, a technique that guides an algorithm to find good choices. When an algorithm uses a heuristic, it no longer needs to exhaustively search every possible solution, so it can find approximate solutions more quickly. A heuristic is a shortcut that sacrifices accuracy and completeness. 

https://www.khanacademy.org/computing/ap-computer-science-principles/algorithms-101/solving-hard-problems/a/using-heuristics 

https://bjc.edc.org/bjc-r/cur/programming/5-algorithms/1-searching-lists/6-heuristics.html?topic=nyc_bjc%2F5-algorithms.topic&course=bjc4nyc.html&novideo&noassignment 

Removing Duplicates: 

https://bjc.edc.org/bjc-r/cur/programming/5-algorithms/1-searching-lists/7-comparing-search-algorithms.html?topic=nyc_bjc%2F5-algorithms.topic&course=bjc4nyc.html&novideo&noassignment 

Ticket-to-Leave: In the comments below, explain how you used removing duplicates to develop a heuristic approach.