Introduction

Search is a central concept in many fields, including:

• Artificial Intelligence

  "HEURISTIC-SEARCH HYPOTHESIS. The solutions to problems are represented as symbol structures. A physical symbol system exercises its intelligence in problem solving by search - that is, by generating and progressively modifying symbol structures until it produces a solution structure." [Newell and Simon, 1976]

• Biology

  "Evolution is a story of organisms adapting by genetic changes, seeking to improve their fitness. Biologists have long harbored images of fitness landscapes, where the peaks represent high fitness, and populations wander under the drives of mutation, selection, and random drift across the landscape seeking peaks, but perhaps never achieving them." [Kauffman, 1995, p. 26]

• Design

  "The designer's job is to find the islands in the sea of possible designs - in other words, the designs that "work". Then, within and across all the islands, designers must seek the highest peaks - the designs that work better than any others, and generate the highest values." [Baldwin and Clark, 2000, p. 38]

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