
Richard Hamming: You and Your Research (1986) - ColinWright
http://www.paulgraham.com/hamming.html
======
jpdoctor
> _You may find yourself as I saw Brattain when he got a Nobel Prize. ...[he
> never did great work again]_

It is a shame that Hamming didn't focus on Bardeen, who shared that Prize (it
was for the transistor). Bardeen then went on to win a second prize (for
superconductivity.)

Great article though.

BTW: It is worth pointing out that there is a great deal of his wisdom that
was very much Bell-Labs culture. A fair amount of that simply does not
translate to the startup world.

~~~
vitovito
I don't think that's true. I think doing great work in the major problems in
your field of choice are the exact heights that entrepreneurialism should
strive for.

(Disclaimer: I recently wrote an essay arguing this same thing, for designers,
for the upcoming issue 03 of Distance, which you can subscribe to at
<http://distance.cc/>)

This essay was a turning point for me as a professional, when I found it,
years ago. Entrepreneurs have the benefit of being able to look for and solve
important problems in _any field_. And what makes a problem important? Here's
how you adapt Hamming's essay on important pure science into important design
work:

 _What makes a problem important? It’s not the end result: responsive web
design provides a new way to build sites, but it’s not the only way. Rather,
importance is a factor of_ solubility: _important problems are answerable, if
only you could connect the right dots. Important problems advance
understanding. Marcotte figured out how to unify design rhetoric across many
devices, but he probably didn’t know he was going to get there when he started
in 2009: the iPad didn’t exist yet, and neither his articles nor his book
mention “iPhone” or “mobile” or even just “phone” in a relevant context._

 _You can't know exactly what field to work in, but you can stay active in
places where something might happen. Maybe these places are where the work is
diligent rather than sexy – like documenting the history of interaction
design, saving rare hardware, or preserving old books. Maybe they are social
and cultural, like educating designers on the value of professional practices,
designing supportive professional societies, and building tools for study. Or
maybe the future will be built on defining best practices for future tools and
their interactions. Wherever you see important problems, you’ll do great work
by sharing your explorations with others._

I go on to give examples of important problems facing designers today. They're
everything from how we design, to big data, to the internet of things, to
natural user interfaces.

You can solve major problems in online payments, and then solve major problems
in electric vehicles, and then solve major problems in space travel. You don't
have to be limited by your field of academic research, and your lunch tables
of chemists and mathematicians can be those of any industry in the world.

Working on important problems means your work will have long-term _meaning_.

~~~
jpdoctor
> _I don't think that's true._

Then I'm gonna bet that you never worked at Bell Labs.

> _I think doing great work in the major problems in your field of choice are
> the exact heights that entrepreneurialism should strive for._

The time scale is vastly different. Entrepreneurs are not interested in
starting programs that will yield results only after 10-20 years, and VCs have
an even shorter attention span. Hell, funding events (which require showing
progress) every _two_ years are considered successful in the startup culture.

~~~
jboy
> Entrepreneurs are not interested in starting programs that will yield
> results only after 10-20 years

What about the SpaceX's of the world? Founded in 2002; docked with the ISS in
2012.

~~~
jpdoctor
> _What about the SpaceX's of the world?_

The folks Hamming mentioned did things and discovered things that had never
been done before.

SpaceX docking with the ISS? You know that has already been proven out; so not
exactly fertile new ground to win a Nobel Prize with.

~~~
jboy
I doubt that docking with the ISS is the end-goal of SpaceX. Musk talks about
missions to Mars, and even helping to establish a human presence there. The
latter certainly hasn't been done before.

My point was that, even at the 10-year mark, SpaceX is still working towards
its goal -- a goal that may very well not yield its results until after the
20-year mark.

While I appreciate that Musk stands out partly as an exception to the rule, I
think it's nevertheless reasonable to concede that not all entrepreneurs are
focussed on 2-year goals.

------
dsego
There's also a youtube video of this talk from '95 -
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1zDuOPkMSw>

~~~
stiff
Wow, this youtube user also has the complete "Learning to learn" course video
lectures available, I made a separate submission out of this as I know the
course from Hammings book based on it and it's excellent stuff, I was really
happy discovering it.

------
ColinWright
Submitted many times before, although getting very little discussion:

[http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=title%3A%28...](http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=title%3A%28you+and+your+research%29&start=0)

Referenced in many other discussions, and submitted here again because of this
question:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4626201>

------
seiji
I've been thinking of doing a video of this to spread it around further. Too
many people see "wall of text" and run away. Any interest?

~~~
bajsejohannes
It's been a while since I read it, but I think I would have preferred an
abbreviated version to a video version.

------
jboy
There are some fantastic insights in this talk. I particularly liked:

 _What appeared at first to me as a defect forced me into automatic
programming very early. What appears to be a fault, often, by a change of
viewpoint, turns out to be one of the greatest assets you can have._

I'll really try to keep this one in mind the next time I run into a
frustrating "just so" problem.

------
16s
I believe that the Hamming Distance was named after Richard Hamming.

~~~
jpdoctor
Hamming Distance, Hamming Code, Hamming Window off the top of my head. He was
a busy dude.

------
askedrelic
I do love this talk and this bit is a really good explanation for why I blog
and contribute to open source:

 _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." The essence of science is cumulative._

------
digitalengineer
TL;DR: 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.

...There are a whole pail full of opportunities, of which, if you're in this
situation, you seize one and you're great over there instead of over here.
There is an element of luck, yes and no. _Luck favors a prepared mind; luck
favors a prepared person. It is not guaranteed;_ I don't guarantee success as
being absolutely certain. I'd say _luck changes the odds, but there is some
definite control on the part of the individual._

------
eugenejen
It seems like no one had compiled a list of all names mentioned in the talk,
so I just compiled a list. I hope this be easier for younger generation to
know who are those people.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Gardner_Pfann>

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_Shannon>

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Hamming>

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Feynman>

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enrico_Fermi>

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Teller>

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Robert_Oppenheimer>

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Bethe>

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hendrik_Wade_Bode>

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein>

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Pasteur>

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_R._Pierce>

[http://www.aip.org/history/acap/biographies/bio.jsp?clogston...](http://www.aip.org/history/acap/biographies/bio.jsp?clogstona)

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Houser_Brattain>

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_Hopper>

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Tukey>

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Edison>

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Darwin>

[http://www.aip.org/history/acap/biographies/bio.jsp?chynowet...](http://www.aip.org/history/acap/biographies/bio.jsp?chynowetha)

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Shockley>

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Bardeen>

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_B._Johnson>

[http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/nytimes/obituary.aspx?n=ken...](http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/nytimes/obituary.aspx?n=kenneth-
g-mckay&pid=140377788#fbLoggedOut)

<http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=16955>

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T%27ain%27t_What_You_Do_%28It%2...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T%27ain%27t_What_You_Do_%28It%27s_the_Way_That_You_Do_It%29)

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Issac_Newton>

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Alexander_Schelkunoff>

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/590_Madison_Avenue>

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_M._Oliver>

<http://www.fraserresearch.org/FRbio_trustees.html>

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_Gilbert>

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Munro_Ross>

