Study dives into the mathematical complexities of everyday tasks, from Doodle polls to efficient scheduling, offering new insights into why scheduling often feels so impossible

>Researchers used mathematical modeling to calculate the likelihood of successfully scheduling a meeting based on several factors: the number of participants (m), the number of possible meeting times (τ) and the number of times each participant is unavailable (r).
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>What they found: As the number of participants grows, the probability of scheduling a successful meeting decreases sharply.
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>Specifically, the probability drops significantly when more than five people are involved—especially if participant availability remains consistent.

>Interestingly, researchers found a parallel between scheduling difficulties and physical phenomena. They observed that as the probability of a participant rejecting a proposed meeting time increases, there’s a critical point where the likelihood of successfully scheduling the meeting drops sharply. It’s a phenomenon similar to what is known as “phase transitions” in physics, Mathur said, such as ice melting into water.

Paper: [The European Physical Journal B (EPJ B)](https://epjb.epj.org/epjb-news/2800-epjb-highlight-scheduling-meetings-are-the-odds-in-your-favour)