Mathematics and Plausible Reasoning, Volume 2 : : Logic, Symbolic and mathematical / / G. Polya.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Princeton University Press eBook-Package Archive 1927-1999
• VerfasserIn: Polya, G.,
• Place / Publishing House: Princeton, NJ : : Princeton University Press, , [2021]; ©1954
• Year of Publication: 2021
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (240 p.)

A guide to the practical art of plausible reasoning, this book has relevance in every field of intellectual activity. Professor Polya, a world-famous mathematician from Stanford University, uses mathematics to show how hunches and guesses play an important part in even the most rigorously deductive science. He explains how solutions to problems can be guessed at; good guessing is often more important than rigorous deduction in finding correct solutions. Vol. II, on Patterns of Plausible Inference, attempts to develop a logic of plausibility. What makes some evidence stronger and some weaker? How does one seek evidence that will make a suspected truth more probable? These questions involve philosophy and psychology as well as mathematics.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- PREFACE -- HINTS TO THE READER -- Contents -- Volume II Patterns of Plausible Inference -- XII SOME CONSPICUOUS PATTERNS -- XIII FURTHER PATTERNS AND FIRST LINKS -- XIV CHANCE, THE EVER-PRESENT RIVAL CONJECTURE -- XV THE CALCULUS OF PROBABILITY AND THE LOGIC OF PLAUSIBLE REASONING -- XVI PLAUSIBLE REASONING IN INVENTION AND INSTRUCTION -- Solutions -- Bibliography -- Appendix -- I. Heuristic Reasoning in the Theory of Numbers -- II. Additional Comments, Problems, and Solutions