beyond the book, what contributions did he make? it would seem like the techniques should have helped him solve problems but Wikipedia does not show anything else
Surely you’re joking. Polya pioneered so much combinatorics I don’t even know where to begin. Heck, a lot of counting problems reduces to polya’s enumeration theorem. The page of “references” to stuff named after him should be a clue to you.
Definitely. Whatever one may think of "How to Solve It," Polya was a renowned mathematician. The book is like the Richard Hamming lectures that often come up on HN: Great thoughts from a great mind but not easily applied by the average or even above average Joe.
Every so often there's a comment on here that's simultaneously so ignorant and so arrogant that it crosses from offensive to hilarious. Congrats, this one is up there with the likes of "it could just be rsync".