What should I try to learn from Polya's "How to Solve It"?

Question

I have just started this book and arrived at the point where the students are trying to find the diagonal of a parallelipepid (Page 11). My question is, what exactly should I be trying to remember or from this book, and how should I go about doing it? Should I try to memorize the questions from the list, or specific applications of the questions/techniques and explicitly apply them? Should I try to solve every exercise that appears in the dialogue, or should I read it very casually?

Polya's book is written in such a way (repeating these questions over and over for example) that it feels very easy to just read straight through it very fast. I'm just wondering where I should slow down to make sure I am getting the most out of the book.

Answer 1

I also read the book "How to solve it?", but in German (title "Schule des Denkens", literaly translation: "School of Thinking"). I will explain my personal impression and how you should read any book like this.

1. Impression: You should definitly learn the 4 steps of the problem-solving-process:

   • Understanding the problem (What is unknown? What is given?)
   • Devise a plan (Can you express the task in other words? Do you know a similar question?)
   • Exercise the plan (Can you see that every step is correct?)
   • Review and Reflection (Can you controll the result? Is it possible to derive it in another way?)

This process is also given implicitly in some calculus textbooks for school in Germany (e.g. Lambacher Schweizer). Further more it is the basis of some mathematic didactic literature and studies. The process is idealized and linear.

2. How to read books like this. I found some interesting hints in the famous book "How to win friends and influence people?" by Dale Carnegie (which is by the way also a recommendable book). I just adapted the priciples to the case at hand:

• Develop a deep, driving desire to master proofs and mathematical problems,
• Read each chapter twice before going on to the next one.
• As you read, stop frequently to ask yourself how you can apply each suggestion.
• Underscore each important idea.
• Review this book each month.
• Apply these principles at every opportunity. Use this volume as a working handbook to help you solve your daily problems.
• Check up each week on the progress you are making. Ask yourself what mistakes you have made, what improvement, what lessons you have learned for the future.
• Keep notes showing how and when you have applied these principles.

I think this suggestions are also helpful in the case of Polya's book, because it is written very action-orientedly, s.t. you can apply the principles in your every day life or you can apply them to eveluate problem solving strategies of other people. It really depends on your interest and motivation why you read the book.

Answer 2

You are probably going to get different answers from different persons. Nevertheless, I shall state in a few words my experience with the book in the hope that it might be of some use to you. I do not intend to prescribe a method for you to follow rigidly, nor anyone should.

I have read the book from cover to cover at a normal pace, paying attention not to the problems in the dialogue (they are perhaps trivial to a great majority of the readers) but to how "the list" was being applied, i.e. what questions where being asked, when were they being asked and how someone who has not faced such problems before might be looking at them.

As for the dictionary: I skimmed through it, slowing down only at a few points of interest. I intend to go back to it only when I have a specific question, much like a normal dictionary would be used - you wouldn't try to memorize a dictionary, would you?

The questions themselves: I printed the document referenced by @Nicky Hekster in the comments to you question and have it always near me. I do not follow it strickly; only give it a glance if I have been stuck with a problem for a long time and don't know what else I could do.

Chances are that you already ask a few of the questions to yourself unconsciously when faced with any type of problem.

Of great interest are the problems which the author offers at the end of the book, which you might want to use to "practice the list".

I would like to take the opportunity to recommend you the book "How to Read a Book".

Answer 3

I think Pólya wanted to teach thinking about mathematical thinking. I read the book as an algorithm for solving algorithms, an exploration in the meta processes involved in reducing problems from unsolved to solved, iteratively turning the apparent intractable to the real tractable.

In essence, Pólya took a step back and said focus on the machinery around the problem before trying to think about the problem in its specifics. This, I concur, is necessary for working with abstract concepts. As Thurston wrote in On Proof and Progress in Mathematics "people have very different ways of understanding particular pieces of mathematics", which the "popular model" for mathematical thinking only caricatures:

(D) Mathematicians start from a few basic mathematical structures and a collection of axioms "given" about these structures, that (T) there are various important questions to be answered about these structures that can be stated as formal mathematical propositions, and (P) the task of the mathematician is to seek a deductive pathway from the axioms to the propositions or to their denials.

You'll find modern authors producing essays similar to Pólya's. See for example Triki and Cut the Knot. Unsurprisingly, as is fitting for the contemporary sensibility of bite-size information, these modern forms are link dumps, blog posts, and short how-to guides.

To answer your question,

What should I try to learn?

I don't think there is one unique answer for everyone. In fact, what you-of-today learn will be different than what you-of-six-months-hence learn, precisely because thinking about math changes how one thinks about math. Read it today and absorb what sticks. Think about it, then come back and re-read it. I guarantee the new you will see insights the old you missed.