The Art of Doing Science and Engineering: Learning to Learn

by Richard Hamming

History tends to be charitable in this matter. It gives credit for understanding what something means when we first do it. But there is a wise saying, “Almost everyone who opens up a new field does not really understand it the way the followers do.” The evidence for this is, unfortunately, all too good. It has been said in physics no creator of any significant thing ever understood what he had done. I never found Einstein on the special relativity theory as clear as some later commentators. And at least one friend of mine has said, behind my back, “Hamming doesn’t seem to understand error correcting codes!” He is probably right; I do not understand what I invented as clearly as he does. The reason this happens so often is the creators have to fight through so many dark difficulties, and wade through so much misunderstanding and confusion, they cannot see the light as others can, now the door is open and the path made easy. Please remember, the inventor often has a very limited view of what he invented, and some others (you?) can see much more. But also remember this when you are the author of some brilliant new thing; in time the same will probably be true of you. It has been said Newton was the last of the ancients and not the first of the moderns, though he was very significant in making our modern world.