What does it mean that a problem is well or ill defined?

What does it mean that a problem is well or ill defined?

Well defined problems contain an answer in most of the cases. These types of problems are usually the ones people encounter in mathematics/physics etc. Whenever certain procedures are applied and certain rules are followed correctly, it will eventually give rise to a satisfactory solution. An example would be taking a test in math and dealing with simultaneous equations or matrices.

Ill defined problems on the other hand are not so straight forward. Thus problems such as dealing with relationships, picking a college/job/partner etc. are called ill defined problems. We encounter problems like these every day. It can be easily spotted that problems like the ones mentioned above or similar ones are often hard to solve. They do not follow any particular rule and the solutions are very often unclear. There is not one single correct answer but rather many different alternatives depending on how a person will tackle the problem.