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Richard Hamming
(11 Feb 1915 - 7 Jan 1998)
American computer scientist and mathematician who invented Hamming codes - computer error-detecting and correcting codes.
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Science Quotes by Richard Hamming (11)
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.
— Richard Hamming
Paraphrased from American Mathematics Monthly (1998) 105, 640-50. Quoted in John De Pillis, 777 Mathematical Conversation Starters (2004), 136.
See also: | Integration (6)
Good teachers deserve apples; great teachers deserve chocolate.
A favorite quotation, written in calligraphy on his office door.
A favorite quotation, written in calligraphy on his office door.
— Richard Hamming
Quoted in National Academy of Engineering, Memorial Tributes (1979), 123.
If you don't work on important problems, it's not likely that you'll do important work.
— Richard Hamming
Quoted in National Academy of Engineering, Memorial Tributes (1979), 123.
See also: | Work (38)
It is better to do the right problem the wrong way than the wrong problem the right way.
— Richard Hamming
Quoted in Julie K. Petersen, Fiber Optics Illustrated Dictionary (2003), 435.
Mathematics is an interesting intellectual sport but it should not be allowed to stand in the way of obtaining sensible information about physical processes.
— Richard Hamming
Quoted in N. Rose, Mathematical Maxims and Minims (1988).
See also: | Mathematics (217)
Newton said, "If I have seen further than others, it is because I've stood on the shoulders of giants." These days we stand on each other's feet! (You and Your Research)
— Richard Hamming
You and Your Research', Bell Communications Research Colloquium Seminar, 7 Mar 1986.
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.
— Richard Hamming
You and Your Research', Bell Communications Research Colloquium Seminar, 7 Mar 1986.
Science is composed of laws which were originally based on a small, carefully selected set of observations, often not very accurately measured originally; but the laws have later been found to apply over much wider ranges of observations and much more accurately than the original data justified.
— Richard Hamming
The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics', The American Mathematical Monthly (Feb 1980), 87 No.2.
The purpose of computation is insight, not numbers.
— Richard Hamming
Numerical Analysis for Scientists and Engineers (1973). Quoted in Stuart K. Card, Jock D. Mackinlay, Ben Shneiderman, Readings in Information Visualization (1999), 6.
There are wavelengths that people cannot see, there are sounds that people cannot hear, and maybe computers have thoughts that people cannot think.
— Richard Hamming
Quoted by J.F. Kaiser, introducing Richard Hamming's address, 'You and Your Research', at the Bell Communications Research Colloquium Seminar, 7 Mar 1986.
See also: | Thought (63)
When you are famous it is hard to work on small problems. This is what did [Claude Elwood] Shannon in. After information theory, what do you do for an encore? The great scientists often make this error. They fail to continue to plant the little acorns from which the mighty oak trees grow. They try to get the big thing right off. And that isn't the way things go. So that is another reason why you find that when you get early recognition it seems to sterilize you.
— Richard Hamming
You and Your Research', Bell Communications Research Colloquium Seminar, 7 Mar 1986.
