Cooking Genius

"You know, guys, traditional logic systems assume that things are either in one category or another. Yet in everyday life, we know this is often not precisely so. People are not just short or tall, they can be fairly short or fairly tall. Besides, we differ in our opinions of what height actually corresponds to tall, anyway," says Mai Grain, CEO of Brainy Offerings Research Enterprise, otherwise known as BORE.

Arranged before him are the ‘guys'-Brando Bhatt, chief marketing manager, who is making doodles on a letter pad, and Sellina Reddy, regional sales manager, who is engrossed in a text message on her cell phone.

"For example, Sellina, the ingredients of a cake are not just not mixed or unmixed, they can be moderately well mixed."

"Oh, is that right, Boss?" says Sellina, reluctantly switching off her mobile. "I never observed a cake that closely."

"Ah, now that we have everybody here paying undivided attention, let me continue to today's topic. What we are about to introduce to the world soon is a simple, precise, and smart device. One in which an on-board micro-computer ensures flawless results at the push of a button. You are looking at our brand new, super-smart rice cooker."

"Rice cooker?" say two voices in alarmed unison.

"Yes. The one-and-only Edison 2.1. It is not the average boring, everyday, counter-clunking cooker that you see in every home. It is a state-of-the-art appliance-a futuristic fuzzy logic rice maker."

"But wait, Boss. What the heck is fuzzy logic?" says Bhatt, scratching his head.

"It all began with a mathematician guy called Lotfi Zadeh in 1965. He created a ‘fuzzy sets' theory. It has to do with mathematical sets, or groups of items known as elements. In most mathematical sets, an element either belongs to the set or it does not. So, normally, a crow would belong to a set of birds, but a bat would not. In fuzzy logic, however, elements can belong to sets in varying degrees. Since a bat has wings, it might belong to a set of birds-but only to a certain extent."

"So a bat may be a bit like a bird, but not really so, eh?" says Sellina, smartly.

"What has all that got to do with making plain old rice?" wails Bhatt.

"Did you even follow one word of what I have been saying, Brando? We are talking of a genius here. We took Lotfi's elements and put his fuzzy logic into a program so they look at the world in a more human way, with degrees of truth. Instead of cold, hard parameters and strict data sets, fuzzy logic assumes a more blurry vision."

"All right. It's still fuzzy to me," says Bhatt, dourly.

"Oh, never mind. All you need to know is that Edison uses fuzzy logic to cook even if you, being inattentive and careless as ever, were to put in too little water or too much water. The fuzzy logic ensures that you get perfectly cooked rice every time."

"So Edison never botches up the rice?"

"Yes, yes, now you get it. Take an example, when the rice is cooking too fast on a hot day. In a typical scenario, the fuzzy logic algorithm will take the form of an if-then statement such as, ‘If the rice is too hot, and it is continuing to heat up fairly quickly, then the heating element needs to be turned down.' The trick to these capabilities is Edison's ability to make precise changes. These may include different keep-warm and quick-cook cycles for the optimum cooking of rice varieties like plain rice, porridge rice, mixed rice, white rice, sweet rice and brown rice."

"Have you tried it yourself, Boss?" says Sellina.

"Of course! I am not the cook in my home, and my wife never trusts me to make rice. But now, ever since I started cooking with Edison 2.1, she is convinced that I am not the man she married. I tried explaining to her that our fuzzy logic cooker has wisdom, but she thinks I need to see a shrink."