Comment by mjb
2 years ago
There's a whole area of math in "optimal stopping" which aims at exactly this question: how many dentists should you try before you pick your favorite?
For example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secretary_problem
2 years ago
There's a whole area of math in "optimal stopping" which aims at exactly this question: how many dentists should you try before you pick your favorite?
For example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secretary_problem
That problem is always sort of intuitively misleading. The success criterion is defined as picking the single best option from the field. But that's not how real life works. You don't have to pick the single best option for a job or spouse or dentist or whatever; you'll likely be satisfied with anything in the top ten or quintile or somewhere around there. It's interesting mathematically, but it's seldom really applicable to real life.