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
hard-work doors important
He who works with the door open gets all kinds of interruptions, but he also occasionally gets clues as to what the world is and what might be important.
important fields problem
What are the important problems of your field?
important example why-not
Often the great scientists, by turning the problem around a bit, changed a defect to an asset. For example, many scientists when they found they couldn't do a problem finally began to study why not. They then turned it around the other way and said, "But of course, this is what it is" and got an important result.
hard-work important problem
If you don't work on important problems, it's not likely that you'll do important work.
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.