You and Your Research by Richard Hamming
Lessons from Richard Hamming
In his 1986 talk “You and Your Research,” renowned mathematician Richard Hamming provided a blueprint for achieving scientific excellence. His message was revolutionary: greatness isn’t reserved for geniuses. Instead, it comes from deliberate preparation, consistent effort, and the courage to tackle significant problems. “If others would think as hard as I did,” he quoted Newton, “they would get similar results.”
The Foundation: Preparation and Courage
Hamming emphasized two fundamental qualities for scientific success:
Preparation: Great opportunities come to those who are prepared. Through systematic study and hard work, you position yourself to recognize and seize important problems when they arise.
Courage: Success requires the confidence to tackle challenging problems and persist through difficulties. Without courage to believe in your ability to solve important problems, you likely won’t even try.
The Compound Interest of Knowledge
One of Hamming’s most powerful insights is that knowledge and productivity work like compound interest. Small, consistent efforts accumulate dramatically over time. Working just 10% harder than your peers can lead to more than twice the output over a career. However, this extra effort must be applied wisely—direction matters as much as magnitude.
The Art of Problem Selection
Hamming offered nuanced guidance about choosing problems:
Important vs. Tractable: Work on problems that are both significant and have a reasonable “attack.” The most profound problems are worthless if you have no viable approach.
Small Problems Matter: Don’t be afraid of working on small problems. In fact, the “Nobel Prize Effect” often sterilizes scientists by making them feel they can only work on grand challenges.
Regular Reflection: Consistently ask yourself: “What’s important in my field? How will things change in the future? What impact could this work have?”
Making the Most of What You Have
“It is a poor workman who blames his tools,” Hamming observed, “the good man gets on with the job, given what he’s got, and gets the best answer he can.” This principle cuts to the heart of productive scientific work:
- Resource Utilization: Success comes not from having the best tools, but from making the best use of available tools
- Creative Problem-Solving: Limited resources often force more creative and elegant solutions
- Positive Adaptation: Rather than complaining about limitations, find ways to work within them
- Focus on Solutions: Spend energy solving problems rather than lamenting constraints
Turning Constraints into Opportunities
A counterintuitive lesson from Hamming is that ideal working conditions often aren’t ideal at all:
- Limited resources can force creative solutions
- Constraints can guide you to innovative approaches
- What seems like a defect can become an asset with the right perspective
- The working conditions you want might not be the ones you need
The Power of Emotional Commitment
Success requires deep emotional investment in your work:
Subconscious Engagement: When truly committed to a problem, your subconscious mind continues working even when you’re not actively engaged.
Tracking Contradictions: Following Darwin’s example, record everything that contradicts your theories. This intellectual honesty leads to stronger work.
Full Dedication: Accept that pursuing excellence means some parts of life will be neglected.
The Open Door Philosophy
Hamming observed that scientists who work with their doors open, despite interruptions, often do more important work than those who work in isolation. This represents a broader principle:
- Stay connected with the scientific community
- Maintain awareness of current research
- Value collaboration over uninterrupted work
- Learn from diverse perspectives
Creating Lasting Impact
To make lasting contributions:
Build Foundations: Create work others can build upon rather than requiring them to duplicate your efforts.
Seek Generalization: Look for ways to make specific solutions more general, as abstraction often simplifies problems.
Communicate Effectively: Make your work accessible and interesting. Present to general audiences, not just specialists.
Working Within Systems
Hamming stressed practical wisdom about navigating professional environments:
- Learn to work with the system rather than fighting it constantly
- Accept help from others, even if they can’t do things exactly as you would
- Adapt to social conventions (like dress codes) when the cost of nonconformity is too high
- Choose your battles—fighting the system takes energy away from scientific work
Personal Management and Growth
Success requires careful self-management:
Radical Honesty: Don’t deceive yourself about your work or your excuses.
Convert Weaknesses: Learn to turn your faults into assets through creative thinking.
Regular Renewal: Every seven years, move to an adjacent field. This prevents stagnation and brings fresh perspectives.
Positive Orientation: Focus on opportunities rather than obstacles.
The Cost of Excellence
Hamming was candid about what pursuing excellence requires:
- Making difficult choices about time and energy
- Accepting that some parts of life will be sacrificed
- Maintaining focus on long-term goals over short-term comfort
- Dealing with stress and pressure
The Fundamental Choice
Hamming’s most profound message was about choice: You have one life—what will you dedicate it to? Will you pursue scientific excellence, or will you spend your energy fighting the system? Few people can do both effectively.
Hamming’s Wisdom: Key Quotes to Remember
Hamming’s insights are often best captured in his own words. Here are some of his most powerful and memorable quotes that encapsulate his philosophy:
On Reading and Active Learning:
“If you read all the time what other people have done you will think the way they thought.”
“You need to keep up more to find out what the problems are than to read to find the solutions.”
“There was a fellow at Bell Labs… he was always in the library; he read everything… but there’s no effect named after him because he read too much.”
On Luck and Preparation:
“The particular thing you do is luck, but that you do something is not.”
“Luck favors the prepared mind.”
On Knowledge and Work:
“Knowledge and productivity are like compound interest.”
“It is a poor workman who blames his tools - the good man gets on with the job, given what he’s got, and gets the best answer he can.”
On Choosing Problems:
“If you do not work on an important problem, it’s unlikely you’ll do important work.”
“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.”
On Openness and Collaboration:
“The closed door is symbolic of a closed mind.”
“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 ten years later somehow you don’t quite know what problems are worth working on.”
On Life Choices:
“You have one life to live—why shouldn’t you do significant things in this one life?”
“The struggle to make something of yourself seems to be worthwhile in itself.”
On Personal Growth:
“You need to know yourself, your weaknesses, your strengths, and your bad faults… How can you convert a fault to an asset?”
“If you want to be a great researcher, you won’t make it being president of the company. You have to be clear on what you want.”
Conclusion
Hamming’s insights reveal that scientific excellence isn’t mysterious or unattainable—it comes from deliberate preparation, courage, wise choices, and consistent effort. While talent matters, success is largely about applying sound principles: choosing important but tractable problems, maintaining productive connections, managing yourself effectively, and staying emotionally committed to your work.
His framework remains vital today, offering practical guidance for anyone aspiring to make meaningful contributions to their field. The key is remembering that excellence is a choice—and as Hamming would say, you have one life to live, so why not make it count for something worthwhile?