How To Solve IT - Four Principles

Four Principles

How to Solve It suggests the following steps when solving a mathematical problem:

  1. First, you have to understand the problem.
  2. After understanding, then make a plan.
  3. Carry out the plan.
  4. 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:

    “To abandon oneself to principles is really to die—and to die for an impossible love which is the contrary of love.”
    —Albert Camus (1913–1960)

    “The same principles which at first view lead to skepticism, pursued to a certain point, bring men back to common sense.”
    —George Berkeley (1685–1753)