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HOW TO SOLVE IT:Descartes, Rene
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[ G.Polya ] Descartes, Rene' (1596-1650), great mathematician and philosopher, planned to give a universal method to solve problems but he left unfinished his Rules for the direction of the Mind. The fragments of this treatise, found in his manuscripts and printed after his death, contain more--and more interesting--materials concerning the solution of problems than his better known work Discours de la Methode Although the "discourse" was very likely written after the "Rules." The following lines of Descartes seem to describe the origin of the "Rules": "As a young man, when I heard about ingenious inventions, I tried to invent them by myself, even without reading the author. In doing so, I perceived, by degrees, that I was making use of certain rules."