George Pólya Award

Not to be confused with 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 especially elegant articles published in the MAA-edited College Mathematics Journal. The award, named for the famous 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
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. Freeman	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

• Pólya Prize