Imagine you're going for a walk, and trying to decide whether to take an umbrella. If there's a downpour outside, your decision is easy, but what if it's a light shower or misting rain? Your decision is likely to involve judgements such as "somewhat" and "maybe".
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Fuzzy logic is a technique used in artificial intelligence that deals with reasoning that is approximate rather than exact. It's something humans do naturally, but harder for a computer.
The question whether it's raining or not raining is not always sharply defined. It might be more than a simple a yes or no, which is why we call it fuzzy. In fact, it's quite difficult to find any category that is not fuzzy to some degree.
Surely, you might argue, you're either alive or dead, male or female.
Maybe, but Wikipedia contains a lengthy section on the definition of death. Then what would we say about the well-documented cases of those born with both male and female body parts?
Those are fairly severe examples. Fortunately the behaviour of your washing machine is not usually life or death. All you want is clean linen using the least possible water, energy, and detergent.
The fuzzy category here is the dirtiness of your next load of washing.
If it's already clean, don't wash. If it's putrid, wash a lot. If it's impregnated with sump oil, wash for longer than for T-shirts soiled with nothing more than regular armpit odour.
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If you can rate your load on the clean to filthy scale, hopefully your clothes will come out just like they do in the ads. You want the washing cycle to run long enough to do the job, but no longer. You don't want to use any more hot water or detergent than necessary.
Products combine this logic with "sensors that continually monitor the varying conditions inside the drum ... water level, laundry load, unbalance and if the lid is open".
Fuzzy logic now appears in every imaginable application, from vacuum cleaners to space docking systems. In anti-lock systems it's use to decide how and when to apply the brakes.
Fuzzy logic controllers in hearing aids automatically adjust to the environment so that if you're surrounded by loud people in a pub, they preferentially switch input to the front microphones.
Fuzzy Logic is also a science show on Radio 2XX. It is thought to have originated in the late 1970s, making it one of Australia's longest-running science shows.
However that uncertainty makes it a fuzzy category.
Listen to the Fuzzy Logic Science Show at 11am every Sunday on 2XX 98.3FM.
Send your questions to AskFuzzy@Zoho.com Twitter@FuzzyLogicSci
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