Richard Hamming - Future Quotes

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It is obvious: The past was once the future and the future will become the past.

Richard Hamming
Apparently an "art"—which almost by definition cannot be put into words—is probably best communicated by approaching it from many sides and doing so repeatedly, hoping thereby students will finally master enough of the art, or if you wish, style, to significantly increase their future contributions to society.

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
Often it is not physical limitations... but rather it is human made laws, habits, and organizational rules, regulations, personal egos, and inertia, which dominate the evolution of the future.

Richard Hamming
In a lifetime of many, many independent choices, small and large, a career with a vision will get you a distance proportional to n, while no vision will get you only the distance √n.... the accuracy of the vision matters less than you suppose, getting anywhere is better than drifting, there are potentially many paths to greatness for you... No vision, not much of a future.

Richard Hamming
Most of the time each person is immersed in the details of one special part of the whole and does not think of how what they are doing relates to the larger picture. For example, in education, a teacher might say in the next class he was going to "explain Young's modulus and how to measure it," rather than, "I am going to educate the students and prepare them for their future careers".

Richard Hamming
It is probable that 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.

Richard Hamming
Teachers should prepare the student for the student's future, not for the teacher's past.

Richard Hamming