What is the difference between blind search and heuristic search?

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Solution 1

Blind Search - searching without information.
For example : BFS (one of blind search method). We just generate all successor state (child node) for currentstate (current node) and find is there a goal state among them, if isn't we will generate one of child node's successor and so on. Because we don't have information, so just generate all.

Heuristic Seach- searching with information.
For example : A* Algorithm. We choose our next state based on cost and 'heuristic information' with heuristic function.

Case Example : find shortest path.
with Blind search we just trying all location (brute force).
with Heuristic, say we have information about distance between start point and each available location. We will use that to determine next location.

Solution 2

Blind search:

it is totally brute in nature because it doesn't have any domain specific knowledge.
it is a very lengthy process
it is also called uninformed or Brute Force search.
large memory is used.
the search process remembers all the unwanted nodes which are no use for the search process.
it doesn't use any special function for searching.
example: depth first search and breadth first search.

Heuristic search:

they use domain-specific knowledge to do the search process.
by the use of heuristic the search process is reduced.
this is called informed search.
no time is wasted in this type of search.
no large memory is used.
heuristic functions are used for searching.
example: hill climbing,best first search and A* and AO*.

Solution 3

This is a pretty vague question, but using a heuristic usually means using logic or prior data to make educated guesses during a search. Blind search (I am guessing) does the particular search without such heuristics and uses a brute force approach.

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