Symbol phi_t

The passage around this formula

…placed before some audience in period t , let $A_t$ be that audience’s total attention budget, and let $c_v$ be the average attention cost of verifying one claim. The number of claims that can be verified, and the fraction $\phi_t$ of what arrives that is actually checked, are then $V_t \;=\; \frac{A_t}{c_v}, \qquad \phi_t \;=\; \frac{V_t}{G_t} \;=\; \frac{A_t}{c_v \, G_t}$. This is bookkeeping, not a finding. Its only content is what it forbids. Simon’s point was that $A_t$ is bounded by hours and by human processing capacity, and that this bound is not responsive to technology in the way…

Read this part in the article →