An heuristic evaluation function is some form of guess at an intermediate state about the eventual outcome of a search. This is used in a heuristic search to act as a guide as to the best order to explore many different options. For example, whilst searching for shortest routes between places, we might use the Euclidean distance between two cities as a heuristic for the eventual shortest road distance well before we explore the potential routes between them.
Used in Chap. 1: page 4; Chap. 4: pages 45, 46, 48, 53, 54, 58, 59, 60; Chap. 6: page 93; Chap. 7: page 106; Chap. 10: page 143; Chap. 11: pages 159, 160, 161, 162, 164, 169, 170; Chap. 12: page 190; Chap. 13: page 207; Chap. 14: page 234; Chap. 15: pages 244, 245, 253; Chap. 16: pages 256, 263; Chap. 18: pages 292, 293, 295, 300; Chap. 19: page 326; Chap. 21: pages 351, 352, 357, 362; Chap. 22: page 368
Also known as heuristic evaluation, heuristic information, heuristics