The Art of Doing Science and Engineering: Learning to Learn

by Richard Hamming

Reading some historians you get the impression the past was determined by big trends, but you also have the feeling the future has great possibilities. You can handle this apparent contradiction in at least four ways: You can simply ignore it. You can admit it. You can decide the past was a lot less determined than historians usually indicate, and individual choices can make large differences at times. Alexander the Great, Napoleon, and Hitler had great effects on the physical side of life, while Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle, Newton, Maxwell, and Einstein are examples on the mental side. You can decide the future is less open-ended than you would like to believe, and there is really less choice than there appears to be. It is probable the future will be more limited by the slow evolution of the human animal and the corresponding human laws, social institutions, and organizations than it will be by the rapid evolution of technology. In spite of the difficulty of predicting the future and that unforeseen technological inventions can completely upset the most careful predictions, you must try to foresee the future you will face.