George Pólya

George ( György ) Pólya ( born December 13, 1887 in Budapest, † September 7, 1985 in Palo Alto) was a mathematician from Hungary. His research interests were in particular probability theory, analysis, combinatorics and number theory.

He possessed the nationality of Austria - Hungary, Switzerland ( Zurich ) in 1918, and the United States from 1947.

Life

POLYAS parents were the lawyer Jakab Pollák and Anna German. After the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867 Jakab changed in 1882 his Slavic surname Pollák into the Hungarian -sounding Pólya.

Pólya had four siblings: two brothers, Jenő (* 1876) and László (* 1891), and two sisters, Ilona (* 1877) and Erkel (* 1879). His Jewish parents converted in 1886 to the Roman Catholic confession.

Learning and Teaching

1905 Pólya began studying law in Budapest, but it broke after only a semester off to then study languages ​​and literature. After graduating, he turned to physics and mathematics. He received teaching stays in Vienna (1910 /11) and Göttingen (1912 /13). With the assistance of a friend, he was a lecturer in 1914, 1920 Adjunct Professor and from 1928 professor of higher mathematics at the ETH Zurich. In 1940 he moved to the United States, where he taught from 1942 to 1953 at Stanford University in Palo Alto.

In the second half of his work, he focused especially on teaching and characterization of problem-solving strategies. These subject areas Pólya published a series of works that are now part of the standard mathematical literature. Here is mainly known his number from solving mathematical problems.

An honorary fellowship from the Mathematical Association of America ( MAA) is named after him ( Pólya Lecturer ). In 1950 he was invited speaker at the International Congress of Mathematicians (ICM ) in Cambridge (Massachusetts ) (On plausible reasoning ).

The ETH Zurich awarded him an honorary doctorate in 1947.

2002 Asteroid ( 29646 ) Polya was named after him.

Works (selection)

• Tasks and theorems in analysis. ( " Problems and theorems in analysis" ). Springer, Berlin, 1975 ( together with Gábor Szegő ).

• Mathematics and plausible closure. Birkhäuser, Basel, 1988,

• - English edition: Mathematics and Plausible Reasoning, Princeton University Press, 1954, 2 volumes ( Volume 1: Induction and Analogy in Mathematics, Volume 2: Patters of Plausible Inference )
• School of thought. From solving mathematical problems ( "How to solve it" ). 4th edition Francke Verlag, Tübingen 1995, ISBN 3-7720-0608-6 ( collection Dalp ).
• - English edition: How to solve it, Princeton University Press, 2004 ( with a foreword by John Horton Conway, expanded edition )
• From solving mathematical tasks. 2nd edition, Birkhäuser, Basel 1983, ISBN 3-7643-0298-4 ( Science and Culture, 21 ).
• - English edition: Mathematical Discovery: On Understanding, Learning and Teaching Problem Solving, 2 volumes, Wiley, 1962 ( edition in one volume, 1981)
• Collected Papers, 4 volumes, MIT Press, 1974 ( editor Ralph P. Boas ). Volume 1: Singularities of Analytic Functions, Volume 2: Location of Zeros, Volume 3: Analysis, Volume 4: Probability, Combinatorics
• RC Read: Combinatorial enumeration of groups, graphs, and chemical compounds, Springer Verlag, 1987 ( English translation of Combinatorial Number of determinations for groups, graphs and chemical compounds, Acta Mathematica, Volume 68, 1937, pp. 145-254 )
• With Godfrey Harold Hardy: John Edensor Littlewood Inequalities, Cambridge University Press 1934
• Mathematical methods in science, MAA, Washington DC, 1977 ( editor Leon Bowden )
• With Gordon Latta: Complex Variables, Wiley 1974
• Robert E. Tarjan, Donald R. Woods: Notes on introductory combinatorics, Birkhauser 1983
• Jeremy Kilpatrick: The Stanford mathematics problem- book: with hints and solutions, New York: Teachers College Press 1974
• With others: Applied combinatorical Mathematics, Wiley, 1964 ( editor Edwin F. Beckenbach )
• Isoperimetric inequalities in mathematical physics, Princeton, Annals of Mathematical Studies 27, 1951