Beware of finding what you're looking for._x000D_ _x000D_ A favorite aphorism he often used.
Interpretation
This quote warns against the pursuit of a singular goal, as it may lead to unintended consequences.
Richard Hamming's quote suggests that when individuals become too focused on a specific outcome or goal, they may overlook broader possibilities or the complexities of their desires. It serves as a reminder that the journey and the learning that occurs along the way can be as valuable, if not more so, than reaching a predetermined destination. Focusing solely on what one seeks may lead to missing out on other opportunities and insights.
In practice
In a motivational speech about personal growth, I might say, 'Beware of finding what you're looking for.'
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.
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.
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.
If you don't work on important problems, it's not likely that you'll do important work.
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.
Put glibly:_x000D_ _x000D_ In science if you know what you are doing you should not be doing it._x000D_ _x000D_ In engineering if you do not know what you are doing you should not be doing it._x000D_ _x000D_ Of course, you seldom, if ever, see either pure state.
We are often attracted to the wrong things, whether it be money, fame, or approval.
Judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgement.
The United States invariably does the right thing, after having exhausted every other alternative.
Your hair may be brushed, but your mind's untidy. _x000D_ You've had about seven hours of sleep since Friday. _x000D_ No wonder you feel that lost sensation. _x000D_ You're sunk from a riot of relaxation.
Let every man be respected as an individual and no man idolized.
To be truly visionary we have to root our imagination in our concrete reality while simultaneously imagining possibilities beyond that reality.
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