Trial and error, or trial by error, is a heuristic method of problem solving, repair, tuning, or obtaining knowledge. "Learning doesn't happen from failure itself but rather from analyzing the failure, making a change, and then trying again." Trial and error is not to be confused with experiment.
In the field of computer science, the method is called generate and test. In elementary algebra, when solving equations, it is "guess and check".
This approach can be seen as one of the two basic approaches to problem solving and is contrasted with an approach using insight and theory. However, there are intermediate methods which for example, use theory to guide the method, an approach known as guided empiricism.
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Famous quotes containing the words trial and, trial and/or error:
“Every political system is an accumulation of habits, customs, prejudices, and principles that have survived a long process of trial and error and of ceaseless response to changing circumstances. If the system works well on the whole, it is a lucky accident—the luckiest, indeed, that can befall a society.”
—Edward C. Banfield (b. 1916)
“In government offices which are sensitive to the vehemence and passion of mass sentiment public men have no sure tenure. They are in effect perpetual office seekers, always on trial for their political lives, always required to court their restless constituents.”
—Walter Lippmann (1889–1974)
“For my part I do, qua lay physicist, believe in physical objects and not in Homer’s gods; and I consider it a scientific error to believe otherwise.”
—Willard Van Orman Quine (b. 1908)