The Art of Doing Science and Engineering: Learning to Learn

by Richard Hamming

There are two subject matters in this chapter: the first is the ostensible topic, error-correcting codes, and the other is how the process of discovery sometimes goes—you all know I am the official discoverer of the Hamming error-correcting codes. Thus I am presumably in a position to describe how they were found. But you should beware of any reports of this kind. It is true at that time I was already very interested in the process of discovery, believing in many cases the method of discovery is more important than what is discovered. I knew enough not to think about the process when doing research, just as athletes do not think about style when they engage in sports, but they practice the style until it is more or less automatic. I had thus established the habit, after something of great or small importance was discovered, of going back and trying to trace the steps by which it apparently happened. But do not be deceived; at best I can give the conscious part, and a bit of the upper subconscious part, but we simply do not know how the unconscious works its magic.