Mathalicious: The Waiting Game

How many people should you date before you settle down?

In the dating game, people often want to wind up with their best possible match. This can present a dilemma, though: if you’re dating someone great, should you commit, or could there be someone else out there who’s better?

In order to win the dating game, in this lesson students explore the “waiting game,” which provides a rule of thumb for how many people you should date before being willing to settle down. By modeling some probability distributions, students will come up with a rule to try to maximize their relationship happiness, and will talk about whether playing the waiting game is really the best way to find their best match.

 

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Math Topics
Probability
High School
9th Grade, 10th Grade, 11th Grade, 12th Grade

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