December 13 George Pólya was born (1887)

George Pólya, a Hungarian mathematician, was born in Budapest. Pólya made significant contribution to the foundation of combinatorics, number theory, numerical analysis, and probability theory. His contribution to problem-solving is also huge, for example, his book How to solve it has been very well received by young mathematicians and students. Pólya provides general heuristics of solving problem of various kinds, not only mathematical ones. Highly recognized prizes were created after his name by the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, the Mathematical Association of America and the London Mathematical Society. He taught at ETH Zurich and Stanford and carried on as Stanford Professor Emeritus the rest of his life. He passed away on September 7, 1985.