Physicists Paul Krapivsky of Boston University and Sidney Redner of the Santa Fe Institute conducted an interesting experiment. They analyzed three different parking strategies – meek, prudent and optimistic – in order to determine which is most likely to be successful. The meek strategy is to park wherever a spot presents itself, the prudent strategy is to park in the first available space as close to the destination as possible and the optimistic strategy is try to find a spot right up front and then backtrack towards an open spot.
e investigate simple strategies that embody the decisions that one faces when trying to park near a popular destination. Should one park far from the target (destination), where finding a spot is easy, but then be faced with a long walk, or should one attempt to look for a desirable spot close to the target, where spots may be hard to find?
via Miss Cellania
