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The math of choosing a restaurant meal is revealed in Richard Feynman’s notes

Decades after the physicist scrawled the solution, researchers have deciphered and tested it

Richard Feynman stands in front of a blackboard in a lecture hall.

Physicist Richard Feynman was known for his love of problem-solving. That extended to the mathematics of choosing a meal at a restaurant.

CERN PhotoLab (CC BY 4.0)

By Emily Conover

A famed physicist’s scribbles reveal the answer to a quintessential dilemma: When dining out, is it better to stick with an old favorite, or try something new?

Nobel Prize–winning physicist Richard Feynman, known for his love of problem-solving, pondered this question with a lunch companion in the 1970s. Feynman