I’ve read Richard Hamming’s essay You and Your Research a couple times and took it to heart. But I didn’t know until this morning that there is a video of Hamming giving his talk. Hat tip to Nuit Blanche.
As Hamming says in his introduction, the talk applies to careers in general, not just jobs in research.
“You and Your Research” is the last chapter in Hamming’s book, The Art of Doing Science and Engineering: Learning to Learn (out of print, but Kindle is available). It’s one of the greatest and most inspiring books I’ve ever read. Each chapter is nominally about some technical topic (eg, “Digital Filters”), but the topic is just a scaffolding for Hamming to ramble about achingly-insightful personal anecdotes.
The book is derived from Hamming’s lecture series of the same name, also available on YouTube.
Bret: Thanks!
Thank you for this John.