Four Principles
How to Solve It suggests the following steps when solving a mathematical problem:
- First, you have to understand the problem.
- After understanding, then make a plan.
- Carry out the plan.
- Look back on your work. How could it be better?
If this technique fails, Pólya advises: "If you can't solve a problem, then there is an easier problem you can solve: find it." Or: "If you cannot solve the proposed problem, try to solve first some related problem. Could you imagine a more accessible related problem?"
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Famous quotes containing the word principles:
“The scope of modern government in what it can and ought to accomplish for its people has been widened far beyond the principles laid down by the old “laissez faire” school of political rights, and the widening has met popular approval.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)
“Every political system is an accumulation of habits, customs, prejudices, and principles that have survived a long process of trial and error and of ceaseless response to changing circumstances. If the system works well on the whole, it is a lucky accident—the luckiest, indeed, that can befall a society.”
—Edward C. Banfield (b. 1916)