Occam's razor (also written as
Ockham's razor, and
lex parsimoniae in
Latin, which means
law of parsimony) is a problem-solving principle attributed to
William of Ockham (c. 1287–1347), who was an English
Franciscan friar and scholastic philosopher and theologian. The principle can be interpreted as stating
Among competing hypotheses, the one with the fewest assumptions should be selected.