pick up theory
Suppose there is a big cornfield, and you are asked to pick up the biggest golden ear of wheat, and the condition is that there is only one to pick, and you can only go ahead without return, what you will do?
Some picks up the first big ear of wheat at their first grasp, that might be too recklessly, as there is nothing to do when they pass by some really big ones. Or, some might get a so so in hand just before they realize that it would be rather too late for nothing.
Ideally, the best solution on this problem could be handled in three steps:
1/3. We will not pick up any ear of wheat, just walk and setup a criteria.
2/3. Do the same thing as in step 1, and if possible make some correction on the criteria.
3/3. Pick up the best one we encounter.
Mathematicians can deal these steps into a more quantitative approach: total departure between big and average wheat ear size, percentage of big wheat ear in the field, synchronization in these two data should make it easy to know what is the perfect size. So far as those big enough wheat ears are perfectly random-scattered in the field, criteria can be setup in the middle point.
Anyway, criteria once made, fetch a big enough wheat ear whenever you meet!
This is very useful in our daily life, for example, when we trying to buy some souvenirs in an overseas travel, people would not buy a lot stuff at the first or second stop.
By the way, sociologists are more seriously on this, they even name it as Wheat Ear Theory, it could be also very helpful in search one’s Mr. or Mrs. Right. For instance, if we take a look of a girl’s married age from 20-30 years old, and if we cut this time into three stages: 21-24, 25-27, 27-30, according to the statistics on 2006, the married age of the girls in Beijing is 26 years old (just in time), in Shanghai is 28 (Oops, a little late maybe!).
As a matter of fact, unmarried mature females with high education levels and high salaries are quite common in Beijing, the more they have missed, the harder they will have to make up a decision.
