Equation 4 · Part 3 · Evaluating Trajectories, Not Answers
Symbol p
What this part means
the probability.
Its job in the formula
p occurs below the fraction bar. The quantity above the bar is divided by this expression; zero is excluded as a denominator.
Full expression→Symbol p→Article meaning
Where the article explains it
If a run costs on average and succeeds with probability p , and the operator simply retries until success, the expected spend to first success is .
The passage around this formula
There is also a structural reason cost cannot be separated from reliability. If a run costs on average and succeeds with probability p , and the operator simply retries until success, the expected spend to first success is . which means a cheap unreliable agent and an expensive reliable one can occupy the same operating point. Reporting either number alone conceals which one you have bought. The honest artefact is a curve — quality against spend, produced by sweeping the effort level and the retry policy — rather than a point, and the honest comparison places two systems at matched spend and asks which reaches further.
Learn the underlying idea
A variable is a named place for a value. Its letter is a local label: x can mean position in one formula and a data point in another.
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Sources cited in the article section
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