https://ryanorban.com/categories/search-theory/Recent content in Search-Theory on Ryan OrbanHugoen-usme@ryanorban.com (Ryan Orban)me@ryanorban.com (Ryan Orban)Ryan OrbanWed, 13 May 2015 00:00:00 +0000https://ryanorban.com/notes/sunken-treasure-bayesian-search/Wed, 13 May 2015 00:00:00 +0000me@ryanorban.com (Ryan Orban)https://ryanorban.com/notes/sunken-treasure-bayesian-search/<h3 id="summary" class="scroll-mt-8 group"> Summary <a href="#summary" class="no-underline hidden opacity-50 hover:opacity-100 !text-inherit group-hover:inline-block" aria-hidden="true" title="Link to this heading" tabindex="-1"> <svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="16" height="16" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" stroke-width="2" class="lucide lucide-link w-4 h-4 block" viewBox="0 0 24 24" > <path d="M10 13a5 5 0 0 0 7.54.54l3-3a5 5 0 0 0-7.07-7.07l-1.72 1.71" /> <path d="M14 11a5 5 0 0 0-7.54-.54l-3 3a5 5 0 0 0 7.07 7.07l1.71-1.71" /> </svg> </a> </h3> <p>This FiveThirtyEight piece tells the story of locating the SS Republic — a Civil War-era steamship that sank in 1865 with gold and silver coins — using Bayesian search theory. The same mathematical framework was used to find Air France Flight 447 (after two years of searching) and has guided military submarine searches since the Cold War. The core insight is that search is a statistics problem: you don&rsquo;t search randomly, you search the highest-probability location first and update your beliefs with each failure.</p>