Ernest Davis Automating Commonsense Reasoning for Science Objective: To develop a knowledge-based system that can reason about an experiment like this (decomposition of KClO3), without requiring exact geometric or quantitative information.
Task: To answer questions such as: What would happen if the test tube were open to the air? If the end of the tubing were outside the collection beaker? If the collection beaker were right-side up? Approach: Logical, knowledge-based analysis: What knowledge is used to make the inference? How can this knowledge be expressed in a formal language? How can the inference be justified in a formal theory?