True greatness is when your name is like ampere, watt, and fourier-when it's spelled with a lower case letter.
Interpretation
True greatness is about humility and contributions rather than seeking personal glory.
Richard Hammingβs quote suggests that true greatness is not defined by fame or accolades, but rather by the impact one has on the world and the humility to remain unassuming. It emphasizes that the most significant contributions are often made by those whose names are remembered not in grandiose fashion, but with an acknowledgment of their ideas and work, which can be recognized even when not capitalized.
In practice
During a speech about innovation, one might quote Hamming to highlight the importance of humble contributions.
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.
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.
When you are warm-hearted, there is no room for anger, jealousy or insecurity.
Nothing is so exhausting as indecision, and nothing is so futile.
The million little things that drop into your hands, The small opportunities each day brings, He leaves us free to use or abuse, And goes unchanging along His silent way
Until you value yourself, you won't value your time. Until you value your time, you will not do anything with it.
Sometimes angels rush in where fools fear to tread.
Those who have experienced good and bad luck many times have every reason to be skeptical of successes
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