STANFORD UNIVERSITY
Faculty of Engineering
Department of Management Science and Engineering
Fall 2008
MS&E 220 – Probabilistic Analysis
Class Project
____________________________________
Submitted To:
Professor Samuel S Chiu
Megan Hansen
Tien-Tien Chan
Emily Hilton
Ming Chen
Submitted By:
mvhansen@stanford.edu
jtchan@stanford.edu
ehilton@stanford.edu
chenm18@stanford.edu
Executive Summary
When two people start dating, they might start asking themselves, “What are my chances
of finding someone better?” or “Is this the one I want to settle with?” If they can’t
answer these questions, probabilistic analysis can!
The purpose of this report is to
explain the mathematical model developed to conduct a probabilistic analysis to figure
out the time it would take a user to meet someone better than the person they are
currently dating or last dated. We do this by iteratively finding how long it will take
someone to meet a person better than the one they are with given a set of parameters,
such as how frequently they meet people and what their preferences are. We then perform
sensitivity analyses to give a recommendation in order to shorten this period. We focus
the model for someone living in the San Francisco Bay Area, though people of all
genders, ages, and sexual orientations can use the model.
This document was written for an audience possessing basic knowledge of dating,
distribution, utility function and sensitivity analysis. Microsoft Excel was the primary
tool used to formulate and solve the models.
Major points covered in this report include discussions of the basic inputs of the model,
formulation process of the model, data collection and analysis, sensitivities analysis to
changes in inputs, and the final recommendations.