You and Your Research

 
"You and Your Research" is an interesting talk by Dr. Richard W. Hamming. This talk centered on Hamming's observations and research on the question ``Why do so few scientists make significant contributions and so many are forgotten in the long run?'' From his more than forty years of experience, thirty of which were at Bell Laboratories, he has made a number of direct observations, asked very pointed questions of scientists about what, how, and why they did things, studied the lives of great scientists and great contributions, and has done introspection and studied theories of creativity. The talk is about what he has learned in terms of the properties of the individual scientists, their abilities, traits, working habits, attitudes, and philosophy. This transcription includes the discussions which followed in the question and answer period. (The original copy of this transcript has been published by Rice University).