Richard Hamming
Richard Hamming
Richard Wesley Hammingwas an American mathematician whose work had many implications for computer engineering and telecommunications. His contributions include the Hamming code, the Hamming window, Hamming numbers, sphere-packing, and the Hamming distance...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionScientist
Date of Birth11 February 1915
CityChicago, IL
CountryUnited States of America
believe mathematics authority
In mathematics we do not appeal to authority, but rather you are responsible for what you believe.
success believe thinking
One of the characteristics of successful scientists is having courage. Once you get your courage up and believe that you can do important problems, then you can. If you think you can't, almost surely you are not going to.
believe airplane differences
Does anyone believe that the difference between the Lebesgue and Riemann integrals can have physical significance, and that whether say, an airplane would or would not fly could depend on this difference? If such were claimed, I should not care to fly in that plane.
believe greatness errors
Most people like to believe something is or is not true. Great scientists tolerate ambiguity very well. They believe the theory enough to go ahead; they doubt it enough to notice the errors and faults so they can step forward and create the new replacement theory. If you believe too much you'll never notice the flaws; if you doubt too much you won't get started. It requires a lovely balance.
people time
If you read all the time what other people have done, you will the think the way they thought.
good learn rather scientists system work
Good scientists will fight the system rather than learn to work with the system.
answers carefully change clear correct people problem reasonably refuse slightly until
If you want to think new thoughts that are different, then do what creative people do - get the problem reasonably clear and then refuse to look at any answers until you've thought the problem through carefully how you would do it, how you could slightly change the problem to be the correct one.
emotion point song technical women
The emotion at the point of technical breakthrough is better than wine, women and song put together.
science way problem
It is better to do the right problem the wrong way than the wrong problem the right way.
people mind trying
You can tell other people all the alibis you want. I don't mind. But to yourself try to be honest.
simple sheep effectiveness
I have tried, with little success, to get some of my friends to understand my amazement that the abstraction of integers for counting is both possible and useful. Is it not remarkable that 6 sheep plus 7 sheep makes 13 sheep; that 6 stones plus 7 stones make 13 stones? Is it not a miracle that the universe is so constructed that such a simple abstraction as a number is possible? To me this is one of the strongest examples of the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics. Indeed, I find it both strange and unexplainable.
toes computer scientist
Mathematicians stand on each others' shoulders and computer scientists stand on each others' toes.
science thinking people
There are wavelengths that people cannot see, there are sounds that people cannot hear, and maybe computers have thoughts that people cannot think.
thinking substitutes typing
Typing is no substitute for thinking.