A polynomial algorithm.called Reduction,is presented to discover natural laws by analysing a set of experimental data.instead of a heuristic exploration which,when adopted in BACON,can only lead to rediscovering simple laws.A complex law with multiple variables involved can be discovered by reducing it to a search.This search is so efficient that it does not need any backtracking and is able to cover most of possible laws.A reduction-based discovery system,called DISCOVER 2.0,was developed with a flexible knowledge base and an ability of dealing with imperfect data.The system has been verified to be valid computationally,practically,and theoretically,by discovering a great number o complex laws,and can be also viewed as a leaming engine embodied in any intelligent systems to improve their performance by obtaining a general rule from the accumulated data.
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