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.
Interpretation
Fame can distract from addressing smaller, foundational problems that lead to greater achievements.
This quote highlights the challenges faced by famous individuals, especially scientists, in maintaining focus on smaller, incremental challenges after achieving significant recognition. Richard Hamming emphasizes the importance of nurturing foundational ideas and projects ('little acorns') that can eventually grow into larger successes, contrasting this with the tendency to chase after monumental achievements immediately, which can lead to stagnation or 'sterilization' of creativity and innovation.
In practice
In a presentation on innovation, referencing this quote can illustrate the importance of foundational work.
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.
Beware of finding what you're looking for._x000D_ _x000D_ A favorite aphorism he often used.
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.
Anxiety in a man's heart weighs him down, but a good word makes him glad.
The more you extend kindness to yourself, the more it will become your automatic response to others.
Give them great meals of beef and iron and steel, they will eat like wolves and fight like devils.
There are more fools than wise men, and even in a wise man there is more folly than wisdom.
If you are still being hurt by an event that happened to you at twelve, it is the thought that is hurting you now.
The main thing is to have a gutsy approach and use your head.
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