George Pólya Award

This article is about the prize awarded by Mathematical Association of America. For the prize awarded by Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM), see George Pólya Prize. For the prize awarded by London Mathematical Society, see Pólya Prize.

The George Pólya Award is a mathematical prize established in 1976 and awarded since 1977 by the Mathematical Association of America (MAA) for quality articles published in the MAA-edited College Mathematics Journal. The award, named for mathematician George Pólya, is given up to twice yearly with a monetary payment of 500 U.S. dollars.

List of prize winners

Year Prize winner(s) Article
2014 Adam E. Parker Who Solved the Bernoulli Differential Equation and How Did They Do It?,

Vol. 44:2, (2013), 89-97.

2014 Christiane Rousseau How Inge Lehmann Discovered the Inner Core of the Earth, Vol. 44:5, (2013), 399-408
2013 Jacob Siehler The Finite Lamplighter Groups: A Guided Tour, Vol. 43:3, (2012), 203-211.
2013 David Applegate, Marc LeBrun, Neil J. A. Sloane Carryless Arithmetic Mod 10, Vol. 43:1,(2012), 43-50.
2012 T.S. Michael Guards, Galleries, Fortresses, and the Octoplex, Vol. 42:3 (2011), 191–200.
2012 Leslie A. Cheteyan, Stewart Hengeveld, Michael A. Jones Chutes and Ladders for the Impatient, Vol. 42:1 (2011), 2–8.
2011 Jonathan K. Hodge, Emily Marshall, Geoff Patterson Gerrymandering and Convexity, Vol. 41:4 (2010), 312–324
2011 John Martin The Helen of Geometry, Vol. 41:1 (2010), 17–27.
2010 Andrew Barker Evolutionary Stability in the Traveler's Dilemma, Vol. 40:1 (2009), 33–38
2010 Curtis Feist, Ramin Naimi Topology Explains Why Automobile Sunshades Fold Oddly, Vol. 40:2 (2009), 93–98
2009 Lawrence Brenton Remainder Wheels and Group Theory, Vol. 39, no. 2, March 2008, 129–135
2009 Greg N. Frederickson Designing a Table Both Swinging and Stable, Vol. 39, no. 4, September 2008, 258–266
2008 Roland Minton, Timothy J. Pennings Do Dogs Know Bifurcations?, Vol. 38, no. 5, November 2007, 356–361
2008 Andrew J. Simoson Pursuit Curves for the Man in the Moone, Vol. 38, no. 5, November 2007, 330–338
2007 Richard Jerrard, Joel Schneider, Ralph Smallberg, John Wetzel Straw in a Box, Vol. 37, March 2006, 93–102
2007 Allen Schwenk Distortion of Average Class Size: The Lake Wobegon Effect, Vol. September 2006, 293–296
2006 Ezra Brown Phoebe Floats!, March 2005, 114–122
2006 James Sandefur A Geometric Series from Tennis, May 2005, 224–226
2005 Brian Hopkins, Robin J. Wilson The Truth About Königsberg, May 2004, page 198
2005 Stephen M. Walk Mind Your ∃s and ∀s, November 2004, page 362
2004 Greg N. Frederickson A New Wrinkle on an Old Folding Problem, September, 2003, Vol. 34(4) pp. 258–263
2003 David L. Finn Can a Bicycle Create a Unicycle Track?, Vol. 33 (2002), 283-292
2003 Dan Kalman An Undetermined Linear System for GPS, Vol. 33 (2002), 384–390
2002 Timothy G. Feeman Conformality, the Exponential Function, and World Map Projections. Vol, 32, November 2001, 334–342
2001 Ezra A. Brown Three Fermat Trails to Elliptic Curves, Vol. 31, No. 3, (2000), 162–172
2001 Chip Ross, Jody M. Sorensen Will the Real Bifurcation Diagram Please Stand Up!, Vol. 31, No.1, (2000), 2–14
2000 Ezra Brown Square roots from 1;24,51,10 to Dan Shanks, Vol. 30 (1999), 82-95
2000 Martin Gardner The asymmetric propeller, Vol. 30 (1999), 18–22
1999 Aaron Klebanoff, John Rickert Studying the Cantor Dust at the Edge of the Feigenbaum Diagrams, Taco, Vol. 29 (1998), 189–198
1999 David Bleecker, Lawrence J. Wallen The World's Biggest Taco, Vol. 29 (1998), 2–17
1998 Kevin G. Kirby Of Memories, Neurons, and Rank-One Corrections, Vol. 28 (1997), 2–19
1998 Aimee Johson, Kathleen Madden Putting the Pieces Together: Understanding Robinson's Nonperiodic Tilings, Vol. 28 (1998), 172–181
1997 Chris Christensen Newton's Method for Ressolving Affected Equations, Vol. 27 (1996), 330–340
1997 Leon Harkleroad How Mathematicians Know What Computers Can't Do, Vol. 27 (1996), 37–42
1996 John H. Ewing Can We See the Mandelbrot Set?, Vol. 26 (1995), 90–99
1996 James G. Simmonds A New Look at an Old Function, e, Vol. 26 (1995), 6–10
1995 Anthony P. Ferzola Euler and Differentials, Vol. 25 (1994), 102–111
1995 Paulo Ribenboim Prime Number Records, Vol. 25 (1994), 280–290
1994 Charles W. Groetsch Inverse Problems and Torricelli's Law, Vol. 24 (1993), 210–217
1994 Dan Kalman Six Ways to Sum a Series, Vol. 24 (1993), 402–421
1993 L. H. Lange, J. W. Miller A Random Ladder Game: Permutations, Eigenvalues, and Convergence of Markov Chains,Vol. 23 (1992), 373–385
1993 D. N. MacKenzie Triquetras and Porisms, Vol. 23 (1992), 118–131
1992 William Dunham Euler and the Fundamental Theorem of Algebra, Vol. 22 (1991), 282–293
1992 Howard Eves Two Surprising Theorems on Cavalieri Congruence, Vol. 22 (1991), 118–124
1991 William B. Gearhart, Harris S. Shultz The Function Sin x/x, Vol. 21 (1990), 90–99
1991 Mark F. Schilling The Longest Run of Heads, Vol. 21 (1990), 196–207
1990 Israel Kleiner Evolution of the Function Concept: A Brief Survey, Vol. 20 (1989), 282–300
1990 D. Neidinger Automatic Differentiation & APL, Vol. 20 (1989), 238–251
1989 Beverly L. Brechner, John C. Mayer Antoine's Necklace – or How to Keep a Necklace from Falling Apart, Vol. 19 (1988), 306–320
1989 Edward Rozema Why Should We Pivot in Gaussian Elimination?, Vol. 19 (1988), 63–72
1988 Dennis M. Luciano, Gordon D. Pritchett Cryptology: From Caesar Ciphers to Public-Key Cryptosystems, Vol. 18 (1987), 2–17
1998 V. Frederick Rickey Isaac Newton: Man, Myth, and Mathematics, Vol. 18, (1987), 362–389
1987 Irl C. Bivens What a Tangent Line Is When It Isn't a Limit, Vol. 17 (1986), 133–143
1987 Constance Reid The Autobiography of Julia Robinson, Vol. 17 (1986), 2–21
1986 Philip J. Davis What Do I Know? A Study of Mathematical Self-Awareness, Vol. 16 (1985), 22–41
1985 Anthony Barcellos The Fractal Geometry of Mandelbrot, Vol. 15 (1984), 98–114
1985 Kay Dundas To Build a Better Box, Vol. 15 (1984), 30–36
1984 Ruma Falk, Maya Bar-Hillel Probabilistic Dependence Between Events, Vol. 14 (1983), 240–247
1984 Richard J. Trudeau How Big is a Point?, Vol. 14 (1983), 295–300
1983 Paul R. Halmos The Thrills of Abstraction, Vol. 13 (1982), 243–251
1983 Douglas R. Hofstadter Analogies and Metaphors to Explain Gó's Theorem, Vol. 13 (1982), 98–114
1983 Warren Page, V.N. Murty Nearness Relations Among Measures of Central Tendency and Dispersion, Part 1, Vol. 13 (1982), 315–327
1982 John A. Mitchem On the History and Solution of the Four-Color Map Problem, Vol. 12 (1981), 108–116
1982 Peter L. Renz Mathematical Proof: What It Is and What It Ought to Be, Vol. 12 (1981), 83–103
1981 Gulbank D. Chakerian Circles and Spheres, Vol. 11 (1980), 26–41
1981 Robert G. Dean, Ennis D. McCune, William D. Clark Calculators to Motivate Infinite Composition of Functions, Vol. 11 (1980), 189–195
1980 Robert Nelson Pictures, Probability, and Paradox, Vol. 10 (1979), 182–190
1980 Hugh F. Ouellette and Gordon Bennett The Discovery of a Generalization: An Example in Problem Solving,Vol. 10 (1979), 100–106
1979 Richard L. Francis A Note on Angle Construction, Vol. 9 (1978), 75–80
1979 Richard Plagge Fraction without Quotients: Arithmetic of Repeating Decimals, Vol. 9 (1978), 11–15
1978 Allen H. Holmes, Walter Sanders, John W. LeDuc Statistical Inference for the General Education Student – It Can Be Done, Vol. 8 (1977), 223–230
1978 Freida Zames Surface Area and the Cylinder Area ParadoxVol. 8 (1977), 207–211
1977 Anneli Lax Linear Algebra, A Potent Tool, Vol. 7 (1976), 3–15
1977 Julian Weissglass Small Groups: An Alternative to the Lecture Method, Vol. 7 (1976), 15–20

See also

References