The Polya Mathematics Center at the University of Idaho has been named in honor of George Polya.

George Pólya
A Short Biography

George Pólya was born in Budapest on December 13, 1887. Young Pólya was not particularly interested in mathematics. He attended the Markó Street Gymnasium in Budapest. Some of the outstanding teachers he remembered at this school were his Latin, Hungarian, and geography teachers. Out of the three mathematics teachers he had at the Gymnasium, Pólya remembered “two were despicable and one was good.” This may explain the fact that Pólya was not yet interested in pursuing a career in mathematics.

In 1905, Pólya entered the University of Budapest. Upon the insistence of his mother, Pólya spent his first semester in law school, a subject he found terribly boring. Through his readings of Darwin (The Descent of Man) he became interested in biology, but his brother insisted that “there is no money in biology”; so Pólya dropped the idea and turned to languages and literature. He received a Latin and Hungarian teaching certificate that he never used. At this point Pólya turned to philosophy. Professor Alexander, his philosophy professor, advised him to take courses in physics and mathematics as part of his studies in philosophy. This decision led him to embark on a career in mathematics because “I thought I am not good enough for physics and too good for philosophy. Mathematics is in between.”

Pólya was awarded the Ph.D. in mathematics with a minor in physics from the University of Budapest in 1912. He then taught and did research at the University of Göttingen, the University of Paris, and the Swiss Federation of Technology in Zurich. Like so many Europeans who were helpless and horrified by the activities of Hitler, he left for the United States in 1940. For two years he had a position at Brown University before settling down in Palo Alto, a town he loved, where he received a position at Stanford University.

Among the numerous books he wrote, he seemed to have been proudest of How to Solve It (1945), which has sold almost one million copies and was translated into 17 languages. As the teaching of problem-solving has become an established direction in mathematics education, the book is sure to enjoy continuing success. Perhaps, the most widely quoted advice from How to Solve It is “If you cannot solve a problem, then there is an easier problem you can solve: find it.” There is hardly a book written on heuristics (methods of discovery) or problem solving that does not refer to this book. A Yahoo search on the key words George Pólya will generate over 1200 references.

His other great work in mathematics education, Mathematics and Plausible Reasoning (1954), translated into six languages, reflects his continuing interest in teaching people to solve problems and prove theorems. Mathematical Discovery (1962), translated into eight languages, extends his thoughts to mathematical research. His books and research papers in mathematics are too numerous to mention here.

George Pólya had a particularly direct impact on the teaching of mathematics in the schools and colleges of the western United States. He regularly visited schools in the Bay area to give mathematical talks. In the process he collected over the years hundreds of high school students who seemed to have particular ability in mathematics to attend his seminars at Stanford. There he inspired many of them to pursue a career in mathematics. Pólya visited most of the colleges in the western states. He spent two days at the University of Idaho in 1955 lecturing and talking with students and faculty members.

George Pólya died on September 7, 1985 at the age of 97 in Palo Alto. Although his eyesight failed in his last few years, Pólya read and answered all correspondence personally. His sense of humor helped him through difficult times, “My mathematical interest is not dead yet,” he explained, “but I seldom feel fit to do mathematics.”

For more information: The entire issue of Mathematics Magazine 60(5) (1987) is devoted to articles about Pólya, each of which contains further references to his many works. There are many internet sites around the world with articles on him. A good one that also leads you to other sites is: http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Pólya.html