How To Solve It A New Aspect of Mathematical Method G. POLYA Stanford University SECOND EDITION Doubleday Anchor Books Doubleday & Company, Inc. Garden City, New YorkContents, From the Preface to the First Printing From the Preface to the Seventh Printing Preface to the Second Edition ix “How To Solve It” list xvi Introduction xix PART I. IN THE CLASSROOM Purpose 1. Helping the student 2 2. Questions, recommendations, ‘mental operations 1 3 Generality 2 4 Common sense 3 5. Teacher and student, Imitation and practice Main divisions, main questions 6. Four phases 5 7 Understanding the problem 6 8. Example 7 9. Devising a plan 8 10. Example 10 41, Carrying out the plan aexii Contents 12, Example 13. Looking back 14, Example 15. Various approaches 16. The teacher's method of questioning 17. Good questions and bad questions More examples 18. A problem of construction 1g. A problem to prove so. A rate problem PART Il. HOW TO SOLVE IT A dialogue PART Il]. SHORT DICTIONARY OF HEURISTIC Analogy Auxiliary elements Auxiliary problem Bolzano Bright idea Can you check the result? Can you derive the result differently? Gan you use the result? Carrying out 3 M 6 19 20 38 88 35 39 33 37 48 50 87 59 6 Contents Condition Contradictory Corollary Could you derive something useful from the data? Could you restate the problem? Decomposing and recombining Definition Descartes Determination, hope, success Dizgnosis Did you use all the data? Do you know a related problem? Draw a figure} Examine your guess Figures Generalization Have you seen it before? Here isa problem related to yours and solved before Heuristic Heuristic reasoning Ir you cannot solve the proposed problem Induction and mathematical induction Inventor's paradox Is it possible to satisfy the condition? Leibnitz Lemma + Contains only cros-reterences 105 108 ng 13 ang 114 ast ase 133 125