Words of Note — "You and Your Research" by Richard W. Hamming

Dr. Richard W. Hamming was an American mathematician. He is known for his contributions to computer science and telecommunications. He made most of the significant contributions while at his work at Bell Labs.

Here are a few excerpts from his talk that he gave to an audience of about 200 Bell core staff members on March 7, 1986. His talk, "You and Your Research" was centered on his observations on the question – "Why do so few scientists make significant contributions and so many are forgotten in the long run?"

The talk, although Hamming addressed scientists, applies pretty much to all science disciplines.

*1.

Our society frowns on people who set out to do really good work. You're not supposed to; luck is supposed to descend on you and you do great things by chance. Well, that's a kind of dumb thing to say. I say, why shouldn't you set out to do something significant? You don't have to tell other people, but shouldn't you say to yourself, "Yes, I would like to do something significant.''

2.

I will cite Pasteur who said, "Luck favors the prepared mind.'' And I think that says it the way I believe it. There is indeed an element of luck, and no, there isn't. The prepared mind sooner or later finds something important and does it. So yes, it is luck. The particular thing you do is luck, but that you do something is not.

3.

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.

4.

When you are famous it is hard to work on small problems. [...] They (great scientists) 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.

5.

What appears to be a fault, often, by a change of viewpoint, turns out to be one of the greatest assets you can have. But you are not likely to think that when you first look the thing and say, "Gee, I'm never going to get enough programmers, so how can I ever do any great programming?''

6.

Ideal working conditions are very strange. The ones you want aren't always the best ones for you.

*7.

"You would be surprised Hamming, how much you would know if you worked as hard as he (John Tukey) did that many years.'' — Hendrik Wade Bode, Hamming's boss

What Bode was saying was this: ``Knowledge and productivity are like compound interest.'' Given two people of approximately the same ability and one person who works ten percent more than the other, the latter will more than twice outproduce the former. The more you know, the more you learn; the more you learn, the more you can do; the more you can do, the more the opportunity - it is very much like compound interest.

8.

On this matter of drive Edison says, ``Genius is 99% perspiration and 1% inspiration.'' He may have been exaggerating, but the idea is that solid work, steadily applied, gets you surprisingly far. The steady application of effort with a little bit more work, intelligently applied is what does it. That's the trouble; drive, misapplied, doesn't get you anywhere.

9.

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.

10.

Darwin writes in his autobiography that he found it necessary to write down every piece of evidence which appeared to contradict his beliefs because otherwise they would disappear from his mind.

*11.

Most great scientists are completely committed to their problem. Those who don't become committed seldom produce outstanding, first-class work.

12.

"creativity comes out of your subconscious.''
If you are deeply immersed and committed to a topic, day after day after day, your subconscious has nothing to do but work on your problem. And so you wake up one morning, or on some afternoon, and there's the answer.

13.

If you do not work on an important problem, it's unlikely you'll do important work. It's perfectly obvious. Great scientists have thought through, in a careful way, a number of important problems in their field, and they keep an eye on wondering how to attack them.
It's not the consequence that makes a problem important, it is that you have a reasonable attack.

*14.

I notice that if you have the door to your office closed, you get more work done today and tomorrow, and you are more productive than most. But 10 years later somehow you don't know quite know what problems are worth working on; all the hard work you do is sort of tangential in importance. 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.

*15.

You should do your job in such a fashion that others can build on top of it, so they will indeed say, "Yes, I've stood on so and so's shoulders and I saw further.''

16.

The essence of science is cumulative. By changing a problem slightly you can often do great work rather than merely good work.

*17.

But the fact is everyone is busy with their own work. You must present it (your work) so well that they will set aside what they are doing, look at what you've done, read it, and come back and say, "Yes, that was good.''

Source: Original Transcript