Welcome to POLYA -- a discussion group on cooperative solution of difficult problems in elementary mathematics (up to the level of calculus). If you are interested in joining this group, please send an email to the moderators with  the subject line: POLYA. Please give your name, city, and country. Institutional affiliation and mailing address are optional.

• Problem Center
• Inventory
• Reserve Area
• Archive
• Membership List
• Frequently Asked Questions

• propose problems to the group by sending an email to the moderators, please include a short title.
• participate in the discussion on problems. (Please include in the subject line the reference number of the problem).
• contribute to bibliographic informations,
• contribute by writing on the history of a problem,
• edit and archive communications on a problem.

Some ground rules:

• A problem proposed to the moderators will be put into the Inventory with a reference number. As soon as discussions begin on the problem, it will be transferred to the Problem Center with a reference number with prefix POLYA.
• Problems from contemporary issues of various mathematical journals should not be posted before a solution is printed by the journal.
• Propose one or two problems at a time. Please do not overwhelm the group with a long list of problems.
• Problems should be appealing and challenging, ideally at the level of the William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition or the International Mathematical Olympiad. Excessively technical problems should be avoided.
• POLYA is not an arena for competition but rather a cooperative forum with the vision of better serving the teaching and learning of mathematics. Exchanges should be courteous and critiques constructive.

The final write-up on a problem should be in LaTeX or MicroSoft Words, and will be archived as .pdf and .ps files, in the following format:

• Title.
• Archiver.
• Statement of the problem.
• Round table discussions, participants listed by initials.
• Summary solution of the problem.
• Appendices.
• List of participants: initials, name, email, affiliation/address, city, country.
• Bibliography.