A week has passed since my last journal entry and no posts on the Stream have been completed since the end of September. The daily journals are intended as training for writing longer pieces more frequently; culminating in a short book some years in my future. It is my goal to have no gaps longer than two days from now until the start of the new year, then I will reasses my goal in accordance with preparing deeper, lengthier pieces that unravel interesting topics. My encylopedia is also lacking. The encyclopedia is for constructing an index of important topics, many of which include topics I have discussed in the last few journals. How the topics are organised is unclear and I forsee a woven page of chaos if some heirarchy isn’t instilled. This I am currently planning.

Now, today I wanted to talk about Richard Hamming. Via Barbara Oakey’s email thread (which I have cited before) I was introduced to a series of lectures by Richard Hamming from a course titled “EC4000: Learning to Learn”. The first lecture is seminal work and those who find themselves with an identity crisis - as is so abundant aming young academics - I encourage you to allocate fourty-seven minutes today while you eat your dinner, or tomorrow while sipping the morning coffee, to watch. Appart from five minutes where Hamming does a back-of-the-napkin demonstration of the growth rate of knowledge in science, or if you enjoy Hamming’s animated justiculations and gruff emotes, the entire lecture can be enjoyed just through audio.

Hamming has spent much of his research career studying the best researchers. The ‘best’ researchers meaning not those who research well and achieve large citation counts, outputting an extraordinary number of papers every year. No, the ‘best’ researchers are those that make seminal contributions; paradigm-altering ideas which mercilessly turn the train’s track ninety degrees. The likes of Turing, Von Neumann, Newton, Hawking, Curie, and Darwin are evident examples, but there are many I have foolishly overlooked in my five-second list. A few quotes from Hamming’s lecture are brilliant and posses some wonderful words of wisdom. This first one is about drawing an analogy between being an artist’s apprentice and doing research:

“You know if you copy the master’s style directly, you will not be a great painter. You know also that if you paint in the style he/she did it’s too late - the future wants a different style. Thus, I can tell you about the style I used in the past, but that won’t be the style you’ll have to have, to cope with the future. You must manufacture the style which will make you a significant person in the future.” - R. Hamming, 1995

This quote is a needle in a haystack; an organic molecule on mars; the collision of two photons in a vaccum. Highly improbable but information abundant. Hamming’s words have made me reevaluate my progress and methods towards my goals in life and I recommend listening to him dictate them himself. His inflections add to the strength of the underlying moral.

Recently I have been struggling with making sure my research is scientific. In computer science especially, it can be too easy to fall into doing engineering, where you adapt knowledge which is already known. When Hamming eloquently defined a concise explanation of science versus engineering I eagerly wrote it down:

“Now I need to discuss the difference between science and engineering. Science, if you are doing it, you shouldn’t know what you are doing. If you know what you are doing, you shouldn’y be doing it, not in science, because science is supposed to be the exploration of what you don’t know. Engineering, you shouldn’t be doing it, unless you do know what you are doing. Well nothing is pure; science involves a great deal of engineering and engineering involves a great deal of new material.” - R. Hamming, 1995

The first few sentences rung true in my mind and I almost hailed my computer screen in agreement. But, when Hamming said that science and engineering are impure and that the two fields swing dance with one another, I realised it wasn’t so bad that I have found myself using engineering techniques to advance my research. In the end, use what you must to do research. The scientific method is very good for managing a question and hypothesis while in unfamiliar territory. Alternatively, engineering is required before you can reach the unknown territory - a pedestal or shoulder to survey the hectic seas ahead.

Hamming also provides us with some practical advice. Advice which certainly invokes a heartful twinge for those who know too well its truth.

“The future of technology will be less determined by what technology can do, than social, legal, and other restraints on what we can do.” - R. Hamming, 1995

It is true that research in technology is vastly ahead of what is available to the public. This is largely due to politic, social, and legal constraints. Hamming forsightully cites self-driving cars and the legal problems with insurance as an example. Hence, seeking social approval for your work and garnering support among the populace is as important as performing the work itself.

Lastly, I conclude with two quotes, both said by Hamming during his talk, but one of which is by Socrates:

“If I can create in you a vision of where you are headed, you will make progress proportional to N.” - R. Hamming, 1995

“The unexamined life is not worth living” - Socrates

The first quote is related to Hamming’s story of the drunken sailor, which I will leave as a treat for you to discover during his talk. I like the quote because it draws from elements on the theory of random walks. If you walk randomly from a point, stumbling around in the dark, you will reach a distance from your starting point proportional to square root of N, where N is the number of steps you have taken. On the other hand, if you have an intended target and move in its direction, you will make progress towards that target proportional to N. Hamming tells us: if you don’t have a goal in life, you’re as good as a drunken sailor.

Finally, Hamming concludes his forty-seven minutes of splendor with a deep quote from Socrates, telling us to simply think about your life. Ask yourself where you want to be, what you want to do, and how you will achieve these things. If you don’t do these necessary tasks, you will merely find youself consuming without ever living.

If all the above can be garnered from the first lecture of the thirty-one the course has to offer, we are in for a treat.