Category
page 1Rules of thumb
Occam's razor
philosophical principle used to judge credibility of statements
Moore's law
observation on the growth of integrated circuit capacity
heuristic
A heuristic or heuristic technique (problem solving, mental shortcut, rule of thumb) is any approach to problem solving that employs a pragmatic method that is not fully optimized, perfected, or rationalized, but is nevertheless "good enough" as an approximation or attribute substitution. Where finding an optimal solution is impossible or impractical, heuristic methods can be used to speed up the process of finding a satisfactory solution. Heuristics can be mental shortcuts that ease the cognitive load of making a decision.
Pareto principle
statistical principle about ratio of effects to causes
right-hand rule
common mnemonic for understanding orientation of axes in three-dimensional space
octet rule
chemical rule of thumb
Markovnikov's rule
empirical rule for predicting the outcome of some addition reactions
Rule of thirds
composition technique
Okun's law
economic relationship
Dunbar's number
value important in sociology and anthropology
1% rule
hypothesis that more people will lurk in a virtual community than will participate
five-second rule
western cultural food hygiene myth
Hückel's rule
method of determining aromaticity in organic molecules
rule of thumb
principle with broad application that is not intended to be strictly accurate or reliable for every situation
68–95–99.7 rule
shorthand used in statistics
18-electron rule
rule used primarily for predicting formulae for stable metal complexes
Lipinski's rule of five
rule of thumb that a compound is likely orally active if it violates at most one of: ≤5 hydrogen bond donors; ≤10 hydrogen bond acceptors; molecular mass of ≤500 Da; octanol-water partition coefficient of ≤5
Wirth's law
computing adage popularized by Niklaus Wirth that that software gets slower more rapidly than hardware becomes faster
Haldane's rule
observation in evolutionary biology
Swanson's law
photovoltaic pricing observation
rule of 72
methods of estimating the doubling time of an investment
diagonal method
Sunny 16 rule
method of estimating exposure in photography
Carson bandwidth rule
Rule in telecommunications
Dennard scaling
scaling law based on a 1974 paper co-authored by Robert H. Dennard, above
Haitz's law
Observation of LED production efficiency
expected date of delivery
date on which a pregnant woman is estimated to give birth
Naismith's rule
Rule of thumb for hiking time
pie rule
rule for balancing a game with an advantage when going first
quantum computing scaling laws
observations predicting exponential progress in quantum computing, including qubit count, computational power, and decoherence time
two-second rule
gap of two seconds between the rear bumper of the vehicle in front and the front bumper of the vehicle following in the same lane, regardless of the vehicles' speed(s)
Baird's rule
Rule in organic chemistry
Three-click rule
unofficial web design rule
Rock's law
Observation on semiconductor fab prices
Huang's law
observation by the head of Nvidia Jensen Huang about the advancement of artificial intelligence technology