This is a book that presents a number of approaches to formal mathematics problems. Each approach is descibed and well illustrated with examples and applications. The book is well organised and written and represents an excellent example of the point of view that stategies should be carefully selected before one plunges into a problem.
When confronted with a problem, many of us waste time puzzling over how to solve the problem, rather than actually solving it. Irritated at the time he had thus wasted in his college mathematics and science courses, the auhtor decided to analyse and systematise the basic methods of solving mathematical problems. Each of thsese methods - inference, classification of action sequences, state evaluation and hill climbing, subgoals, contradiction, working backward, and relations between problems - is considered in a separate chapter.
The methods are described in terms of a modern theory derived from research in artificial intelligence and computer simulation of thinking. This text is useful for courses n fields that require problem solving - mathematics, physical sciences, engineering, computer science, statistics, economics, business and others. The book will also be useful for advanced courses in psychology (cognition, thinking, and problem solving) and in computer science and electrical engineering courses concerned with artificial intelligence.