Editing Toy problem (section)

{{Short description|Simplified example problem used for research or exposition}}
{{refimprove|date=May 2016}}
[[File:Vacuum World.tif|thumb|Vacuum World, a [[shortest path problem]] in which the goal is to vacuum up all the pieces of dirt]]
In scientific disciplines, a '''toy problem'''<ref name="aima2010" /><ref name="korf2012" /> or a '''puzzlelike problem'''<ref name="pearl1984" /> is a problem that is not of immediate scientific interest, yet is used as an expository device to illustrate a trait that may be shared by other, more complicated, instances of the problem, or as a way to explain a particular, more general, problem solving technique. A toy problem is useful to test and demonstrate methodologies. Researchers can use toy problems to compare the performance of different [[algorithm]]s. They are also good for [[game design]]ing.

For instance, while engineering a large system, the large problem is often broken down into many smaller toy problems which have been well understood in detail. Often these problems distill a few important aspects of complicated problems so that they can be studied in isolation. Toy problems are thus often very useful in providing intuition about specific phenomena in more complicated problems.

As an example, in the field of [[artificial intelligence]], classical puzzles, games and problems are often used as toy problems. These include [[sliding-block puzzle]]s, [[N-Queens problem]], [[missionaries and cannibals problem]], [[tic-tac-toe]], [[chess]],<ref name="aima2010">{{cite book
 |author = Stuart J. Russell, Peter Norvig
 |title = Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach
 |edition = 3
 |year = 2010
 |isbn = 978-0-13-604259-4  <!-- |isbn2 = 0-13-604259-7 -->
 |pages = 70–73, 102–107, 109–110, 115, 162
 |publisher = Prentice Hall
 |url = https://books.google.com/books?id=8jZBksh-bUMC&q=toy
}}</ref> [[Tower of Hanoi]] and others.<ref name="korf2012">{{cite conference
 | last = Korf | first = Richard E. | author-link = Richard E. Korf
 | editor1-last = Hoffmann | editor1-first = Jörg
 | editor2-last = Selman | editor2-first = Bart
 | contribution = Research Challenges in Combinatorial Search
 | doi = 10.1609/AAAI.V26I1.8444
 | pages = 2129–2133
 | publisher = AAAI Press
 | title = Proceedings of the Twenty-Sixth AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence, July 22–26, 2012, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
 | year = 2012| volume = 26
 | doi-access = free
 }}</ref><ref name="pearl1984">{{cite book
 |author = Pearl, Judea
 |title = Heuristics: intelligent search strategies for computer problem solving
 |year = 1984
 |isbn = 0-201-05594-5
 |pages = 4
 |publisher = Addison-Wesley Publishing Company
 |url = https://books.google.com/books?id=1HpQAAAAMAAJ&q=puzzlelike
}}</ref>