The scenario is that passing on a candidate means they might become unavailable, or choosing one means you can't look at the rest. Basically, how to choose the

The scenario is that passing on a candidate means they might become unavailable, or choosing one means you can't look at the rest. Basically, how to choose the best item when you have to choose and can't change your mind? Well, you can't guarantee you choose the best, but you can try to maximize the chance of doing better than random. This models real-world situations such as (the article example) picking a wife from a pool of women, or even something such as who to hire from a pool of job applicants. In these scenarios, job candidate you passed on might take a different job, or the woman you choose to marry means you can't date the rest, or vice versa. Obviously, if you can examine everyone and then go back and choose, you'd do that. The irony is Kepler actually did get to go back - he hesitated on #5, she became unavailable, then he went through the rest of his list of women... and went back to re-woo #5. So he got to see all the candidates before choosing. ;)