The Random Walks of George Polya (Softcover)

Condition

LIKE NEW: This softcover book is in excellent, like-new condition. The book's pages are printed on high-gloss paper.

Product Details

From the back cover: "George Pólya enjoyed the esteem of the mathematical community now only for his deep and influential contributions in a variety of mathematical fields, but also for his groundbreaking work in the teaching of mathematics. His standing in the latter area could rest solely on his having written one of the most widely read books in mathematics, the still-popular How to Solve It. Various other books were almost equally influential, however: Mathematical Discovery and Mathematics and Plausible Reasoning, to name but two. With G. Szegö he wrote the mathematical classic, Problems and Theorems in Analysis.

"In addition to his championing problem-solving, he contributed to mathematics important results in complex and real analysis, inequalities, mathematical physics, combinatorics, probability theory, number theory and geometry. He coined the phrases 'random walk' and 'central limit theorem' and gave to mathematics the Pólya Enumeration Theorem, along with many other ideas used widely today.

"The present work attempts to describe how such versatility came about and, along the way, tells some stories about mathematics and mathematicians that, we hope, will enlighten and entertain."

BRIEF CONTENTS

The book starts with Preface and Prologue and includes the following numbered chapters:

1. Childhood
2. Pólya's Education
3. Vienna, Göttingen, and Paris
4. Zürich
5. Collaboration with Szegö
6. Oxford and Cambridge
7. The United States—The First Visit
8. Swiss Citizenship
9. Stanford
10. 1945
11. Honors
12. The Later Years

The book concludes with Epilogue, References, and Pólya's Bibliography, as well as the following numbered appendices:

1. Pólya's Work in Probability by K. L. Chung
2. Pólya's Work in Analysis by R. P. Boas
3. Comments on Number Theory by D. H. Lehmer
4. Pólya's Geometry by Doris Schattschneider
5. Pólya's Enumeration Theorem by R. C. Read
6. Pólya's Contributions in Mathematical Physics by M. M. Schiffer
7. George Pólya and Mathematics Education by Alan H. Schoenfeld
8. Pólya's Influence—References to His Work
9. Prizes, Awards and Lectureships Honoring George Pólya
10. "On Picture Writing" by George Pólya
11. "Generalization, Specialization, Analogy" by George Pólya
12. "Heuristic Reasoning in the Theory of Numbers" by George Pólya
13. "Probabilities in Proofreading" by George Pólya
14. Cast of Characters—A Glossary of Names

The book finishes with photograph acknowledgments and an index.