Trial and Error 可以被翻译为试错，更白话一些就是不断尝试，不断犯错，继续尝试，继续犯错，一直进行下去，直到作对了。
有一篇英文文章讲解的不错，特在此分享，原文链接：
http://www.exforsys.com/career-center/problem-solving/the-use-of-trial-and-error-to-solve-problems.html
The Use of Trial and Error To Solve Problems
Some complex problems can be solved by a technique that is called trial and error. Trial and error is typically good for problems where you have multiple chances to get the correct solution. However, this is not a good technique for problems that don’t give you multiple chances to find a solution.
An example of situations where you wouldn’t want to use trial and error are diffusing a bomb or performing an operation on a patient. In these situations, making an error can lead to disaster. Trial and error is used best when it is applied to situations that give your large amounts of time and safety to come up with a solution.
In addition to this, trial and error is also a great way to gain knowledge. Basically, a person that uses the trial and error method will try to a method to see if it is a good solution. If it is not a good solution, they try another option. If the method works, the person using it has acquired the correct solution to a problem. However, there are some situations where there are too many options, and it is not feasible for a person to go through all of them to find out which one works the best. In this event, a person will want to use the option that has the best possible chances of succeeding. If this doesn’t work, they can try the next best option until they find a good solution.
There are a number of important factors that makes trial and error a good tool to use for solving problems. The purpose of trial and error is not to find out why a problem was solved. It is primarily used to solve the problem. While this may be good in some fields, it may not work so well in others. For example, while trial and error may be excellent in finding solutions to mechanical or engineering problems, it may not be good for certain fields which ask "why" a solution works. Trial and error is primarily good for fields where the solution is the most important factor. This is often the case in math courses which are taught in high school or college.
Most math teachers place an emphasis on using trial and error to find a solution to problems, and many of them don’t spend a whole lot of time explaining "why" a solution works. One reason for this is because most math teachers have time constraints. However, some students who take advanced math classes in college may learn more about why certain solutions work. Another good aspect of the trial and error method is that it does not try to use a solution as a way of solving more than one problem. Trial and error is primarily used to find a single solution to a single problem.
Trial and error is not a method of finding the best solution, nor is it a method of finding all solutions. It is a problem solving technique that is simply used to find a solution. One of the most powerful advantages to this technique is that it does not require you to have a lot of knowledge. However, it may require you to have large amounts of patience. Trial and error is typically used to discover new drugs, and it also plays an important role in the scientific method as well. Some also feel that organic evolution is a form of trial and error, because random mutations will occur until they are successful.
Trial and error is also an excellent tool for inventors. The inventor will first imagine a device they would like to invent, and then they may go through the trial and error process to find the best ways of inventing the device. While trial and error is an extremely powerful tool that can be used to solve problems, it also has some weaknesses. I mentioned this briefly in the first paragraph. Trial and error is inefficient in situations where making an error can lead to serious injury or death. A good example of this would be the attempts that were made by aircraft engineers to break the sound barrier. Though they succeeded, many pilots died because they would use the trial and error process. In the situation, and error would often lead to the plane crashing.