Richard Hamming - Engineering Quotes

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Much of present science rests on engineering tools, and as time goes on, engineering seems to involve more and more of the science part.... the two fields are growing together!... and now there is not enough time to allow us the leisure which comes from separating the two fields.

Richard Hamming
In science if you know what you are doing you should not be doing it.
In engineering if you do not know what you are doing you should not be doing it.
Of course, you seldom, if ever, see the pure state.

Richard Hamming
Great results in science and engineering are "bunched" in the same person too often for success to be a matter of random luck.

Richard Hamming
You live in an age that is dominated by science and engineering.... Thus if you wish to be effective in the world and to achieve the things that you want, it is necessary to understand both science and engineering (and those require mathematics).

Richard Hamming
In forming your plan for your future you need to distinguish three different questions: What is possible? What is likely to happen? What is desirable to have happen? In a sense the first is Science... The second is Engineering.. The third is ethics, morals, or... value judgements.... you will probably have an idea of how to alter things to make the more desirable future occur... having a vision is what tends to separate the leaders from the followers.

Richard Hamming
Since I was trying to teach "style" of thinking in science and engineering, and "style" is an art, I should therefore copy the methods of teaching used for the other arts—once the fundamentals have been learned. How to become a great painter cannot be taught in words... Art teachers usually let the advanced student paint, and then make suggestions... more or less as the points arise in the student's head—which is where learning is supposed to occur!

Richard Hamming
All of engineering involves some creativity to cover the parts not known, and almost all of science includes some practical engineering to translate the abstractions into practice.

Richard Hamming
Put glibly:
In science if you know what you are doing you should not be doing it.
In engineering if you do not know what you are doing you should not be doing it.
Of course, you seldom, if ever, see either pure state.

Richard Hamming