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.
Grand strategy is the art of looking beyond the present battle and calculating ahead. Focus on your ultimate goal and plot to reach it.
We must have the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless furnace of this world.
The fact that the author thinks slowly is not serious, but the fact that he publishes faster than he thinks is inexcusable.
You may not enjoy loneliness, because loneliness is sad. But solitude is something else; solitude is what you look forward to when you want to be alone, when you want to be with yourself. So, solitude is something we all need from time to time.
Pity is one of the noblest emotions available to human beings; self-pity is possibly the most ignoble . . . . [It] is an incapacity, a crippling emotional disease that severely distorts our perception of reality . . . a narcotic that leaves its addicts wasted and derelict.
Until you have learned to be tolerant with those who do not always agree with you, you will be neither successful nor happy.
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