最佳結婚年齡爲什麼是26歲大綱

If you're in your early 20s and Valentine's Day has you thinking about your romantic future, consider the 37% Rule.

根據37%法則，如果你已經二十出頭，情人節就是你考慮的浪漫未來。

According to journalist Brian Christian and cognitive scientist Tom Griffiths, coauthors of "Algorithms to Live By: The Computer Science of Human Decisions," that rule could help you save time looking for a spouse.

記者布萊恩•克里斯安和認知科學家湯姆•格里弗茲合作發表了文章《生活的算法：人類決定的計算科學》，這個法則可以幫你節省尋找伴侶的時間。

The 37% Rule basically says that when you need to screen a range of options in a limited amount of time — be they candidates for a job, new apartments, or potential romantic partners — the best time to make a decision is when you've looked at 37% of those options.

37%法則基本上是說，當你需要在規定時間內做出選擇——可能是某個工作的候選人，新公寓或者有可能發展的對象——做決定的最好時機就是當你看了37%的選項的時候。

At that point in a selection process, you'll have gathered enough information to make an informed decision, but you won't have wasted too much time looking at more options than necessary. At the 37% mark, you're in a good place to pick the best of the bunch.

做選擇的過程到了這個時間點，你已經獲取了足夠信息來做一個明智的決定，同時，你並沒有浪費太多時間。37%，是你做選擇的最佳時機。

A common thought experiment to demonstrate this theory — developed by non-PC math guys in the 1960s — is called "The Secretary Problem."

有一個共識實驗可以證明這個理論——那就是20世紀60年代的“祕書難題”

In the hypothetical scenario, you can only screen secretaries once. If you reject a candidate, you can't go back and hire them later (since they might have accepted another job). The question is: How deep into the pool of applicants do you go to maximise your chance of finding the best one?

假設，你一次只能見一個祕書。如果你拒絕了一個候選人，之後就不能再僱傭他（因爲他們已經接受了別的工作）。問題來了：在衆多候選人中，你怎麼纔能有最大的機率機會找到最佳人選？

If you interview just three applicants, the authors explain, your best bet is making a decision based on the strength of the second candidate. If she's better than the first, you hire her. If she's not, you wait. If you have five applicants, you wait until the third to start judging.

作者解釋，如果你只面試三個候選者，你最好在面試第二個人的時候做決定。如果她比第一個人好，你就錄取她，如果她不合適，你可以再等等。如果你有五個候選人，你就等到第三個人的時候再做決定。

So if you're looking for love between the ages of 18 and 40, the optimal age to start seriously considering your future husband or wife is just past your 26th birthday (37% into the 22-year span). Before then, you'll probably miss out on higher-quality partners that could still come around, but after that, good options could start to become unavailable, decreasing your chances of finding a good match.

所以，如果你在18歲到40歲之間的年齡尋找愛情，那麼開始認真考慮你未來丈夫或妻子的最佳時機就是過了26歲生日的時候。（這22年跨度的37%）在這之前，你可能會錯過一些高質量的對象，但他們還在你周圍。而在這之後，好的選擇就很難得了，找到一個好的另一半的機會也在減少。

In mathematics lingo, searching for a potential mate is known as an "optimal stopping problem." Over 1,000 possibilities, Christian and Griffiths explain, you should pull the trigger on someone 36.81% of the way through. The bigger the pool of options, the closer to exactly 37% you can get.

用數學語言，尋找潛在的另一半被稱爲“最優停止問題”。 克里斯安和格里弗茲解釋說，超過一千種可能，你應該在整個過程的36.81%的階段做出決定。選擇池越大，這個節點越接近37%。

Research about successful marriages seems to support the age sweet spot of 26.

關於成功婚姻的調查似乎也說明結婚的最佳年齡是26歲。

The 37% Rule isn't perfect. Since it borrows from the cold logic of math, it assumes that people have a reasonable understanding of what they want in a partner by 26, but doesn't account for the fact that what we look for in our partners may change dramatically between 18 and 40.

37%法則並不完善。它借用冷冰冰的數學邏輯，並且假設人們在26歲的時候充分明白了自己對另一半的要求，但它沒能預知到，我們在18歲到40歲之間，找對象這件事可能發生戲劇性的變化。

What the 37% Rule does tell us is that 26 is the age when our dating decisions are most trustworthy — it's the point at which we can stop looking and start taking those big leaps of faith.

37%法則告訴我們，26歲的時候，談戀愛做的決定是最靠譜的——在這個時候我們可以停止尋找，開始人生的重大跨越。