Early Stopping Problem

The problem's origins are disputed, but the most commonly cited thread leads to Merrill M. Flood, a mathematician at RAND Corporation who reportedly introduced a version called the "fiancée problem" in 1949. The puzzle remained in mathematical folklore until February 1960, when Martin Gardner published it in his Mathematical Games column in Scientific American, reframed as the "game of googol." The first rigorous solution appeared in print in 1961, and the puzzle eventually acquired its best-known name, the "secretary problem."