Davide Castelvecchi at Nature:
In a scene that could have easily featured in an episode of the US television sitcom The Big Bang Theory, the late US physicist Richard Feynman once turned a visit to a Thai restaurant he often dined at into a mathematical riddle: how adventurous should we be in trying new dishes? Feynman promptly solved this on a sheet of paper.
Now, behavioural scientists have revisited Feynman’s solution — some of which had been obscured by his inscrutable handwriting — and found that his was indeed the optimal strategy.
Feynman’s dilemma is one that will be familiar to any restaurant-goer. Do we keep ordering the best dish we’ve had so far, or do we explore the menu in the hope of finding something better? A study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on 1 June probes this question, and includes experimental findings that participants adopt meal-choosing strategies that closely approximate Feynman’s mathematical solution.
More here.
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