5.1 Notion of Heuristics

• Suppose our problem is:

  1 2 3 4 5 . 7 8 6	1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 .
  Initial	Goal

• If a depth first search is unlucky it could pick LEFT or UP to try next.

• This would result in worse positions than the starting position !

• The search might never try DOWN and find the one move solution.

• Is there some way we can force the search to try the best/most promising move first ?

• Good News !! Yes !!!

• We can use some "domain knowledge" or "heuristics" information (Informed Search)