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Ladies: Would You Accept A Diamond From A Math Professor?
A study conducted by two Math Professors, Peter Sozou and Robert Seymour of the Center for Mathematics, University College of London was published this week in the Proceedings of The Royal Academy .
In their experiment they set up courtship as a sequential game and asked the question; What are the characteristics of a good courtship gift?
Their model was structured like this: The male offers a gift to a female; after observing the gift, the female decides whether or not to accept it; she then chooses whether or not to mate with the male. In one version of the game, based on human courtship, the female is uncertain about whether the male intends to stay or desert after mating. In a second version, there is no paternal care but the female is uncertain about the male's quality. The two versions of the game are shown to be mathematically equivalent.
Expensive investments during courtship does less to convince the woman of the man's long-term intentions and whether he'll stick around once there are kids.
Theoretical modeling put courtship as a sequential game, and concluded that an expensive night-on-the-town was a sounder investment than expensive jewelry, according to Sozou and Seymour.
So, Ladies, are these academics on target and which would impress you more about the guy? An expensive one time weekend trip to Paris or a big Diamond Rock?
