Month: September 2013

Imagine designing a thermostat with ants. Seriously, try to get your brain to focus on how to solve when to turn the furnace on using ants. If you’re like me, our brain just sits there and says, “with ants!? WITH ANTS!?”. Then responds, “let’s solve the problem without ants.” Read: one where we already know…

When we first start playing chess, we calculate out all the possible moves we can make and consider each one. We decide on some immediate aim (taking a piece) for which we can see all the moves we need to take to get there. We quickly find there are limits to this approach as our…