new operators guess ket and guess operator

I decided it might be useful to have a couple of operators that guess the ket or the operator, even if you don't know their name exactly. Don't have a strong use-case yet, but seems to be something that humans do, so should presumably be useful eventually.

There are three variations of each:

guess-ket |ket>
guess-ket[k] |ket>
guess-ket[*] |ket>

The first one just gives you the best matching ket. The second returns the top k matches. The third gives all matches with similarity > 0.

Likewise, we have:

guess-operator[op]
guess-operator[op,k]
guess-operator[op,*]

where the first one gives you the best matching operator. The second gives the top k matches. The third gives all of them with simm > 0.

Now, for a little bit of the details in the back-ground. We basically use the similarity metric on the superpositions created by the process_string() function, against all known kets "context.relevant_kets("*")" or known supported operators "context.supported_operators()":

  def process_string(s):
    one = ket(s.lower())
    return make_ngrams(one,'1,2,3','letter')

Now, a couple of examples:

-- learn a little knowledge:
the-age-of |Fred> => |age: 27>
the-age-of |Frank> => |age: 33>
the-age-of |Robert> => |age: 29>
the-age-of |Rob> => |age: 31>

-- return only the best match to "freddie":
sa: guess-ket |freddie>
0.611|Fred>

-- see all matches to "freddie":
sa: guess-ket[*] |freddie>
0.611|Fred> + 0.167|Frank> + 0.122|Robert> + 0.056|Rob>

-- now try the guess-operator[]:
sa: guess-operator[age]
0.259|op: the-age-of>

-- who is "roberto"?
sa: guess-ket |roberto>
0.844|Robert>

-- one potential use case. Guess the operator and the ket:
sa: apply(guess-operator[age] |>,guess-ket |roberto>)
0.219|age: 29>

NB: in this last example we used "guess-operator[age] |>". Note especially the |> tacked on the end. We need this so it is parsed as a (compound) superposition. In the console though, it is not mandatory, and I often get lazy and leave it out. A similar thing applies to rel-kets[op] and probably some other function operators. If something doesn't work as expected, put |> in, and that should fix it. Indeed, best practice is to always include it!

That's probably about it for this post. Though I have to wonder with my if-then machines, if guess-operator, and guess-age are redundant? Don't know. Time will tell!

If interested, the code for these are at the bottom of the functions code, with names "guess_ket" and "guess_operator". Just CTRL-F to find them.

That's it for this post.

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updated: 19/12/2016
by Garry Morrison
email: garry -at- semantic-db.org