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Ask HN: Solving problems by mapping to other problems that we know how to solve

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Re: Ask HN: Solving problems by mapping to other problems that we know how to solve

#51

TRIZ ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRIZ ) is a methodology that tries to solve problems by mapping them to a set of 40 "generic problems". It's not focused on algorithms per se, but on industrial problems.

+1 for TRIZ. "Industrial" is maybe a tad too restrictive word though

Re: Ask HN: Solving problems by mapping to other problems that we know how to solve

#54

TRIZ ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRIZ ) is a methodology that tries to solve problems by mapping them to a set of 40 "generic problems". It's not focused on algorithms per se, but on industrial problems.

> industrial problems

Based on tens of thousands of Russian patents (i.e. problems + solutions).

Used by Samsung and others in modern "innovation", i.e. new patents.

Re: Ask HN: Solving problems by mapping to other problems that we know how to solve

#55

TRIZ ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRIZ ) is a methodology that tries to solve problems by mapping them to a set of 40 "generic problems". It's not focused on algorithms per se, but on industrial problems.

There is also TRIZ for Software Engineering. Darrell Mann has worked on applying TRIZ to the Software domain. There is also a book [1] from him, which is not easy to read if you are not familiar with TRIZ.

[1]: https://store.systematic-innovation.com/systematic-software-...

Re: Ask HN: Solving problems by mapping to other problems that we know how to solve

#56
post #35

That’s called Mathematics. For example, most NP-complete problems we know of were proven to be NP-complete by showing them to be no easier than some other problems we know to be NP-complete. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NP-completeness#NP-complete_pr... : “The easiest way to prove that some new problem is NP-complete is first to prove that it is in NP, and then to reduce some known NP-complete problem to it” As a se…

Reply to self: of course, the prime example is counting. If you have five breads, you can sell three, and have two breads left after that.

Similarly, If you have five apples, you can sell three, and have two apples left after that.

You didn’t have to learn separate addition tables for breads, apples, etc.

Instead you learned that all such problems essentially are the same, and you learned how to manipulate the equivalence classes of those (which are called 5, 3, and 2)

Re: Ask HN: Solving problems by mapping to other problems that we know how to solve

#57
I studied physics in undergrad. This was basically my impression: most problems are really hard but we don’t need to solve all of the cases. Just hammer on it until it looks like a harmonic oscillator and then apply the known solution.
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