{"id":238242,"date":"2026-06-03T02:33:37","date_gmt":"2026-06-03T07:33:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/06\/how-a-richard-feynman-formula-could-explain-your-dining-habits-in-a-new-city"},"modified":"2026-06-03T02:33:37","modified_gmt":"2026-06-03T07:33:37","slug":"how-a-richard-feynman-formula-could-explain-your-dining-habits-in-a-new-city","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/06\/how-a-richard-feynman-formula-could-explain-your-dining-habits-in-a-new-city","title":{"rendered":"How a Richard Feynman formula could explain your dining habits in a new city"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/how-a-richard-feynman-formula-could-explain-your-dining-habits-in-a-new-city.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>One of the dilemmas facing anyone in a new and unfamiliar city is where to dine out. You might consult guides, speak to locals, check reviews, and ultimately, try your luck. But if you\u2019re there for a while, at some point you\u2019re going to be asking yourself whether to visit new eateries or stick to the ones you\u2019ve already tried and liked.<\/p>\n<p>This is known as a classic explore-exploit dilemma and was something the late physicist and Nobel laureate Richard Feynman pondered during a restaurant meal with a friend in the 1970s. His companion was debating whether to order his favorite dish or try something new. Feynman turned the question into a math problem and solved it there and then, scribbling his workings on pieces of paper.<\/p>\n<p>Feynman, who died in 1988, never published his solution, but researchers came across his handwritten notes and not only deciphered them, but also put the solution to the test.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One of the dilemmas facing anyone in a new and unfamiliar city is where to dine out. You might consult guides, speak to locals, check reviews, and ultimately, try your luck. But if you\u2019re there for a while, at some point you\u2019re going to be asking yourself whether to visit new eateries or stick to [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2229],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-238242","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mathematics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238242","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/427"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=238242"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238242\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=238242"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=238242"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=238242"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}