Richard Hamming Quotes

A scientist builds in order to learn; an engineer learns in order to build.

we expect definitions to tell us not only what is, but what to do about it; to show us how the world fits together and how its different parts connect and work. ... A label is the first step toward action.

If politics is the art of the possible, research is surely the art of the soluble. Both are immensely practical-minded affairs.

Scientists study physical things, then describe them; engineers describe physical things, then build them.

As a boy, I was deeply interested in scientific ideas, electrical and mechanical, and I read almost everything I could find on the subject. I was attracted more by the hardware and construction aspects than by the scientific issues.

Science - or the products of science like technology - is just a way of achieving something real, something that happens, something that works.

There are so many things which you do not have to consider if you are developing and studying a theory in a classroom. It is useful to deal with theories in developing youthful minds, for later they will deal with facts and profit by what they have learned of other men's thoughts, but it is quite different to be faced with actual situations that have to be met in one way or another in a given period of time.

Everything that wasn't invented by God is invented by an engineer.

The core of what I do is solve problems, whether that's in graphic engine flow or rockets. I like working on things that are going to have an impact one way or the other.

I got no thrill from solving an integral equation, but I did get a thrill from building an exotic piece of equipment that worked.

In my lab, we are constantly asking, 'What's the utility of this pure science that we're doing? Let's nudge it a little bit in a direction where people can connect to it and have some fun and/or help some very serious problems they have.'

Engineers have shown to embody a tremendous amount of leadership skills through the collaborative educational environment.

When it comes to making decisions, I'm not what you'd call a numbers guy.

I think maths is the root of everything. If we understood every area of math, it would lead to improving our sense of science, physics, engineering, space travel... all those great things. Maths is a backbone for it.

Avoid the spectacle of technology and instead focus on technology and science solving real problems.

It is true that one has to think first and then to act - but it's also true that if one has no possibility of acting, one's thinking kind of becomes empty and stupid.

When Da Vinci wanted an effect, he willed, he planned the means to make it happen: that was the purpose of his machines. But the machines of Newton ... are means not for doing but for observing. He saw an effect, and he looked for its cause.

Failure is Central to engineering. Every single calculation that an engineer makes is a failure calculation.

Engineering is a great profession. There is the satisfaction of watching a figment of the imagination emerge through the aid of science to a plan on paper. Then it moves to realization in stone or metal or energy. Then it brings homes to men or women. Then it elevates the standard of living and adds to the comforts of life. This is the engineer's high privilege.

Successful people engage that creative part of their minds and ask, "Well, I wonder how else I can look at this problem? I wonder how else I could deal with this decision? I wonder what other possibilities I have there?"

To the engineer falls the job of clothing the bare bones of science with life, comfort, and hope.

A chess master can keep track of more choices than the number of stars in the galaxy within an instant, but these are people that have truly learned and mastered the choices that they have and how to deal with those choices over a very, very long period of training, so essentially what they're really doing is ruling out all the irrelevant choices and only zeroing in on the most relevant, useful choices at the moment.

If you sense a deep human need, then you go back to all the basic science. If there is some missing, then you try to do more basic science and applied science until you get it. So you make the system to fulfill that need, rather than starting the other way around, where you have something and wonder what to do with it.

The real value of science is in the getting, and those who have tasted the pleasure of discovery alone know what science is. A problem solved is dead. A world without problems to be solved would be devoid of science.