Pile of Index Cards

Ref. : In my blog ‘Mathematical approach for daily problem‘

Professor of mathematics in Stanford University.

He worked on a great variety of mathematical topics, including series, number theory, combinatorics, and probability. In his later days, he spent considerable effort on trying to characterize the general methods that people use to solve problems, and to describe how problem-solving should be taught and learned (source : Wikipedia, George Pólya). In his book “How to solve it”, he gave general strategy to solve given mathematical problem.

Personally, I call him as ‘Pólya Sensei (Dear Teacher Pólya)’ in my mind, though I have never met him. :)

Book : How to Solve It: A New Aspect of Mathematical Method,
new ed., 2004 (Japanese version is here).

In mathematics, solving problem become easier if one follows a certain strategy. George Pólya showed such general strategy in his book “How to Solve It”.

His strategy is especially useful when one must solve a problem which answer is unknown yet. It is like a compass in a deep dark forest.

Although his strategy is originally for mathematical problem, it can be applied for problems in our daily life. Because we sometimes don’t know exact answer. In his strategy, following points are quite useful.

• Understand the problem : Ask yourself ‘What are the unknowns? What are the given quantities? What are the given conditions?’
• Draw a diagram : Picture, graph, mind map. Understand the problem visually.
• Find similar problem : You may experience similar problem before. Most of time you don’t need to start from zero.
• Solve related problem : If you can’t solve the problem, try to solve related problem.
• Verify your answer : To increase reliability of your answer. Especially important when you don’t know exact answer.

ref : G. Polya and “How to Solve It!” (PDF file at Ohio State University)

• Interest : Be genuinely interested in other people
• Smile : :)
• Name : Remember and use people’s names
• Listen : Encourage others to talk about themselves and listen to them
• Interest : Discuss what the other person is interested in
• Praise : Make the other person feel important

Source : Dale Carnegie, How to win friends and influence people,
in Japanese, new ed., 1999 (photo @ flickr).
(English version quote from Wikipedia)

To remember ‘SLIP IN to ones heart’.

I had used computer mainly for my writing and thinking during graduate school. I believed digital world is perfect. I rarely hand-write that time.

One day, I surprised that I can’t remember Kanji (Chinese character). On input Kanji on computer, it shows candidates for translation to Kanji. All I need is just choose appropriate Kanji from the candidates. It is like difference between ‘reading’ and ‘writing’ or ‘hearing’ and ‘doing’.

My colleagues, computer nerd, also complained this problem. We were twenteenager (?) at that time, too early to lose memory. It is obviously come from computer dependence.

Perhaps this problem is special case for Japanese, it is enough to motivate me to return to hand-writing. Memory about Kanji is getting better. And now I believe, from my experience, hand-writing do enhances memory. :)

Japanese use three kind of writing system for writing ; Kanji, Hiragana, and Katakana.

Kanji was introduced from China to Japan in 5-6 century. Now Japanese student learn about a thousand of Kanji in elementary school. Usually, Japanese use nearly two thousand of Kanji in daily life (souce : Wikipedia, Jyoyo Kanji). Hiragana and Katakana is derived from Kanji, and there is 104 cases each (Wikipedia, Hiragana). Because of this complicated system, writing in Japanese on computer is more difficult than alphabet system.

We need following procedure for writing on computer,

Input Hiragana -> Translation to Kanji -> Choose from candidates -> Decision

This procedure is repeated for every word. Thinking is interrupted by this complicated input method.

Hand-writing is much much easier and faster than computer for me. It connects thinking (brain) and writing (hand) more properly.