How Math Can Tell You When to Move On in Life

One of the grand questions in life is when it’s time to move on. Whether you’re a hunter-gatherer rapidly depleting the berries in your area or an oil company considering leaving one well to start up another, from the point of view of a mathematician, you face the same basic dilemma: “When should you go to where the grass is greener?” says Sidney Redner, a physicist at the Santa Fe Institute. The problem shows up in ecology, where researchers study the optimal strategy for a foragers moving through its environment; in management research, where companies decide between sinking money into innovation or excelling where they are strongest; and many, many other places.