Data Driven Discovery -- BACON (1981)

Many discoveries are made from observing data obtained from the world and making sense of it -- E.g. Astrophysics - discovery of planets, Quantum mechanics - discovery of sub-atomic particles.

BACON is an attempt at provided such an AI system.

BACON system outline:

• Starts with a set of variables for a problem.
  • E.g. BACON was able able to derive the ideal gas law. It started with four variables p - gas pressure, V -- gas volume, n -- molar mass of gas, T -- gas temperature. Recall pV/nT = k where k is a constant.
• Values from experimental data from the problem are inputted.
• BACON holds some constant and attempts to notice trends in the data.
• Inferences made.

BACON has also been applied to Kepler's 3rd law, Ohm's law, conservation of momentum and Joule's law.