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The Goldilocks principle is named by analogy to the children's story "
Goldilocks and the Three Bears "Goldilocks and the Three Bears" is a 19th-century English fairy tale of which three versions exist. The original version of the tale tells of an impudent old woman who enters the forest home of three anthropomorphic bachelor bears while th ...
", in which a young girl named Goldilocks tastes three different bowls of
porridge Porridge is a food made by heating, soaking or boiling ground, crushed or chopped starchy plants, typically grain, in milk or water. It is often cooked or served with added flavourings such as sugar, honey, fruit, or syrup to make a sweet cereal ...
and finds she prefers porridge that is neither too hot nor too cold but has just the right temperature. The concept of "just the right amount" is easily understood and applied to a wide range of disciplines, including
developmental psychology Developmental psychology is the scientific study of how and why humans grow, change, and adapt across the course of their lives. Originally concerned with infants and children, the field has expanded to include adolescence, adult development ...
,
biology Biology is the scientific study of life and living organisms. It is a broad natural science that encompasses a wide range of fields and unifying principles that explain the structure, function, growth, History of life, origin, evolution, and ...
,
astronomy Astronomy is a natural science that studies celestial objects and the phenomena that occur in the cosmos. It uses mathematics, physics, and chemistry in order to explain their origin and their overall evolution. Objects of interest includ ...
,
economics Economics () is a behavioral science that studies the Production (economics), production, distribution (economics), distribution, and Consumption (economics), consumption of goods and services. Economics focuses on the behaviour and interac ...
and
engineering Engineering is the practice of using natural science, mathematics, and the engineering design process to Problem solving#Engineering, solve problems within technology, increase efficiency and productivity, and improve Systems engineering, s ...
.


Applications

In
cognitive science Cognitive science is the interdisciplinary, scientific study of the mind and its processes. It examines the nature, the tasks, and the functions of cognition (in a broad sense). Mental faculties of concern to cognitive scientists include percep ...
and
developmental psychology Developmental psychology is the scientific study of how and why humans grow, change, and adapt across the course of their lives. Originally concerned with infants and children, the field has expanded to include adolescence, adult development ...
, the Goldilocks effect or principle refers to an
infant In common terminology, a baby is the very young offspring of adult human beings, while infant (from the Latin word ''infans'', meaning 'baby' or 'child') is a formal or specialised synonym. The terms may also be used to refer to juveniles of ...
's preference to attend events that are neither too simple nor too complex according to their current representation of the world. This effect was observed in infants, who are less likely to look away from a visual sequence when the current event is moderately probable, as measured by an idealized learning model. In
astrobiology Astrobiology (also xenology or exobiology) is a scientific field within the List of life sciences, life and environmental sciences that studies the abiogenesis, origins, Protocell, early evolution, distribution, and future of life in the univ ...
, the Goldilocks zone refers to the
habitable zone In astronomy and astrobiology, the habitable zone (HZ), or more precisely the circumstellar habitable zone (CHZ), is the range of orbits around a star within which a planetary surface can support liquid water given sufficient atmospheric pressu ...
around a
star A star is a luminous spheroid of plasma (physics), plasma held together by Self-gravitation, self-gravity. The List of nearest stars and brown dwarfs, nearest star to Earth is the Sun. Many other stars are visible to the naked eye at night sk ...
. As
Stephen Hawking Stephen William Hawking (8January 194214March 2018) was an English theoretical physics, theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author who was director of research at the Centre for Theoretical Cosmology at the University of Cambridge. Between ...
put it, "Like Goldilocks, the development of intelligent life requires that planetary temperatures be 'just right. The
Rare Earth hypothesis In planetary astronomy and astrobiology, the Rare Earth hypothesis argues that the origin of life and the evolution of biological complexity, such as sexually reproducing, multicellular organisms on Earth, and subsequently human intelligence, ...
uses the Goldilocks principle in the argument that a
planet A planet is a large, Hydrostatic equilibrium, rounded Astronomical object, astronomical body that is generally required to be in orbit around a star, stellar remnant, or brown dwarf, and is not one itself. The Solar System has eight planets b ...
must be neither too far away from nor too close to a
star A star is a luminous spheroid of plasma (physics), plasma held together by Self-gravitation, self-gravity. The List of nearest stars and brown dwarfs, nearest star to Earth is the Sun. Many other stars are visible to the naked eye at night sk ...
and galactic centre to support life, while either extreme would result in a planet incapable of supporting life. Such a planet is colloquially called a "Goldilocks Planet".
Paul Davies Paul Charles William Davies (born 22 April 1946) is an English physicist, writer and broadcaster, a professor in Arizona State University and director of BEYOND: Center for Fundamental Concepts in Science. He is affiliated with the Institute ...
has argued for the extension of the principle to cover the selection of our universe from a (postulated)
multiverse The multiverse is the hypothetical set of all universes. Together, these universes are presumed to comprise everything that exists: the entirety of space, time, matter, energy, information, and the physical laws and constants that describ ...
: "Observers arise only in those universes where, like Goldilocks' porridge, things are by accident 'just right. In
medicine Medicine is the science and Praxis (process), practice of caring for patients, managing the Medical diagnosis, diagnosis, prognosis, Preventive medicine, prevention, therapy, treatment, Palliative care, palliation of their injury or disease, ...
, it can refer to a drug that can hold both antagonist (inhibitory) and agonist (excitatory) properties. For example, the antipsychotic
Aripiprazole Aripiprazole, sold under the brand name Abilify, among others, is an atypical antipsychotic primarily used in the treatment of schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and irritability associated with autism spectrum disorder; other uses include as ...
causes not only antagonism of dopamine D2 receptors in areas such as the mesolimbic area of the brain (which shows increased dopamine activity in psychosis) but also agonism of dopamine receptors in areas of dopamine hypoactivity, such as the mesocortical area. In economics, a
Goldilocks economy A Goldilocks economy is an economy that is not too hot or cold, in other words sustains moderate economic growth, and that has low inflation, which allows a market-friendly monetary policy. The name comes from the children's story ''Goldilocks and ...
sustains moderate economic growth and low inflation, which allows a market-friendly
monetary policy Monetary policy is the policy adopted by the monetary authority of a nation to affect monetary and other financial conditions to accomplish broader objectives like high employment and price stability (normally interpreted as a low and stable rat ...
. Goldilocks pricing, also known as
good–better–best Good–better–best, also known as Goldilocks pricing, is a type of pricing strategy, a form of tiered pricing in which variations of a product are offered at multiple prices. Consumer behavior The "good" option is typically a basic, no frills ...
pricing, is a marketing strategy that uses
product differentiation In economics and marketing, product differentiation (or simply differentiation) is the process of distinguishing a product or service from others to make it more attractive to a particular target market. This involves differentiating it from c ...
to offer three versions of a product to corner different parts of the market: a high-end version, a middle version, and a low-end version. In communication, the Goldilocks principle describes the amount, type, and detail of
communication Communication is commonly defined as the transmission of information. Its precise definition is disputed and there are disagreements about whether Intention, unintentional or failed transmissions are included and whether communication not onl ...
necessary in a system to maximise effectiveness while minimising redundancy and excessive scope on the "too much" side and avoiding incomplete or inaccurate communication on the "too little" side. In
statistics Statistics (from German language, German: ', "description of a State (polity), state, a country") is the discipline that concerns the collection, organization, analysis, interpretation, and presentation of data. In applying statistics to a s ...
, the "Goldilocks Fit" references a
linear regression In statistics, linear regression is a statistical model, model that estimates the relationship between a Scalar (mathematics), scalar response (dependent variable) and one or more explanatory variables (regressor or independent variable). A mode ...
model that represents the perfect flexibility to reduce the error caused by bias and variance. In the
design sprint A design sprint is a time-constrained, five-phase process that uses design thinking with the aim of reducing the risk when bringing a new product, service or a feature to the market. The process aims to help teams to clearly define goals, validate ...
, the "Goldilocks Quality" means to create a prototype with just enough quality to evoke honest reactions from customers. In
machine learning Machine learning (ML) is a field of study in artificial intelligence concerned with the development and study of Computational statistics, statistical algorithms that can learn from data and generalise to unseen data, and thus perform Task ( ...
, the Goldilocks
learning rate In machine learning and statistics, the learning rate is a tuning parameter in an optimization algorithm that determines the step size at each iteration while moving toward a minimum of a loss function. Since it influences to what extent newly ...
is the learning rate that results in an algorithm taking the fewest steps to achieve minimal
loss Loss may refer to: *Economic loss *Grief, an emotional response to loss **Animal loss, grief over the loss of an animal Mathematics, science, and technology * Angular misalignment loss, power loss caused by the deviation from optimum angular al ...
. Algorithms with a learning rate that is too large often fail to converge at all, while those with too small a learning rate take too long to converge.


See also

*'' Cosmic Jackpot'' *
Frugality Frugality is the quality of being frugal, sparing, thrifty, prudent, or economical in the consumption of resources such as food, time or money, and avoiding waste, lavishness or extravagance. In behavioral science, frugality has been defined as ...
*
Anthropic principle In cosmology, the anthropic principle, also known as the observation selection effect, is the proposition that the range of possible observations that could be made about the universe is limited by the fact that observations are only possible in ...
*
Big History Big History is an academic discipline that examines history from the Big Bang to the present day, present. Big History resists specialization and searches for universal patterns or trends. It examines long time frames using a multidisciplinar ...
*
Fine-tuned universe The fine-tuned universe is the hypothesis that, because "life as we know it" could not exist if the fundamental physical constants, constants of nature – such as the electron charge, the gravitational constant and others – had been even ...
*
Golden mean (philosophy) The golden mean or golden middle way is the desirable middle between two extremes, one of excess and the other of deficiency. It appeared in Greek at least as early as the Delphic maxim "nothing in excess", which was discussed in Plato's '' Phile ...
* Anna Karenina principle


References

{{Portal bar, Society, Biology, Astronomy, Stars, Spaceflight, Outer space, Solar System, Science Astronomical hypotheses Articles containing video clips Goldilocks and the Three Bears de: Goldlöckchen-Prinzip