🧠 Session Review
Session Title: Optimal Stopping Problem
Date: 3rd November 2025
Presenter: Shayan Najafian
Slides: Optimal Stopping The Science of When to Stop Looking.pdf
Reviewed by: Shayan Najafian
🗣️ Attendees
- Ali Fazel
- Mahdi Meskin
- Arman Riahi
- Behnam Moein
- Hossein Karimjafari
- Pouria Moradpour
- Reza Mirmohammadsadeghi
- Shayan Najafian
- Yahya Izadi
🗣Discussion Questions
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What is Secretary Problem Statement and what are its conditions?
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What is the best strategy for the secretary problem?
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Where does the 37% come from?
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What is the difference between No information vs. full information games?
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What is Threshold Rule?
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Why do people tend to stop early?
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What is Exploration and Exploitation?
📝 Summary
First, we learned about the secretary problem, then we delved into its unclear history and met some computer scientists and mathematicians. Then we looked at the different strategies that can be used to solve the problem and discussed the advantages and disadvantages of each. Then we talked about the practical aspects of the problem, such as finding a partner, selling a house, finding a parking space, and getting out of a series of problems. Finally, we learned about exploration and exploitation.
💬 Discussion Highlights
The interesting thing we realized was that we can’t really always use this algorithm and the 37% rule in life. Because life has much more specific and complex situations. For example, you can go back to previous options or we have a lot of information in our minds about different options and also many cognitive biases affect our choices.
🧾 References & Resources
- Algorithm to live by book, Tom Griffiths and Brian Christian
- https://plus.maths.org/content/mathematical-dating
- https://bigthink.com/neuropsych/the-37-percent-rule/
- https://towardsdatascience.com/when-should-you-stop-searching-a439f5c5b954/