A talk about Automating discovery

James Hetherington

2026-06-04

Let’s learn a game

Why isn’t chess like science?

Perfect knowledge of the state of the world.
Perfect knowledge of the rules.
Perfect predictability of the consequences of actions.

The starting position of a chess game

How to play Kriegspiel

What does Kriegspiel tell us about science?

Partially Observed Decision Problems

Physics-free gravity

Uncertainty in Physics-free gravity

Put the planets where you want them!

Automated experimentation