博士僧日记

http://penrose.blog.sohu.com/46451613.html#

诵经的大殿里没有烦恼，但是跪着的膝盖很疼；
俗世的生活里没有快乐，但是可以活得很开心。
——《布达拉宫》台词
http://118.img.pp.sohu.com/images/blog/2007/5/17/21/19/113326156df.jpg

从前有座村，村叫中关村。村里有座寺，寺叫保福寺。

寺里住着一群老和尚，他们号称自己为“老衲”。老和尚养着一群小和尚，他们只能称自己为“贫僧”。僧按照学历高低分两种，刚刚从象牙塔受戒出来的叫做硕士僧，以前给其他老衲打过杂的可以直接升级为博士僧。而到西天取过经或者见识过妖魔鬼怪的，可以成为老衲们的助手，号称“小老衲”。如果小老衲经过九九八十一难中若干简单困难的锻炼并获得一定的证书，就有可能升级为正式老衲，领袖一群贫僧和小老衲。若九九八十一难得以圆满，就会被尊为“圆士”。功德圆满后，就可以坐享其成，指挥寺里各方面建设和发展了。

老衲们的主要任务就是化缘，打着寻找真经的旗号，向各位施主们求施。由于保福寺是大寺，年花销很大，估计一个老衲组下就得上百万RMB才足以维持正常运转，所以化缘任务艰巨。各位款爷和官爷是最好的化缘对象，实在不成，就直接伸手问皇帝老爷要，毕竟是发展国家佛学需要嘛！官爷们高兴了，也会给几个赏钱。这群和尚们就靠老衲化缘来的钱维持生活。

寺里的开销，主要是如下几个方面：一是每天敲的木鱼和撞的钟，你可别小瞧这些木鱼和钟。木鱼敲要敲得脆还要五音俱全，钟可是鎏金的大钟，几百万上千万一个的。这些木鱼很奇怪，有的要喝营养液才能维持各种敲打，这些营养费每年好歹也要三四十万。二是各方取经和诵经大会的钱，安排一次诵经和听经大会不容易，各方云游众僧都得安排好下榻旅馆还得吃好喝好，关键要上档次。要是请来几路神仙，就更了不得了，全寺上下每个人都得紧张起来，紧密团结在方丈老衲的周围，维护本寺美好形象，这样下来，开销肯定低不了。三是买经书的钱，还有买地皮房租水电以及给众贫僧的伙食钱。僧舍很简单，从两到六人一间不等，条件也算可以，只是每月的房租还是得老衲们支付。僧舍也住尼姑，和尚和尼姑们有门对门的也有墙贴墙的，大致是习惯了也无所谓。寺里的大堂有好几个，主堂大雄宝殿，红装素裹、煞是雄伟，只是外形不扬，怎么看都像个大型马桶。于是和尚们就天天进马桶出马桶，敲鱼撞钟，日复一日。

保福寺特别之处在于，商业化运作。和尚们一般不用自己做饭，中午有八元免费工作餐，早晚饭也可以自己掏钱买饭。食堂是给某公司承包的，经营各类饲料，实行价格不匪、味道不行、爱吃不吃的“三不”经营模式。僧舍也有专人打扫、专人看门、专人收费、专人管理，和尚们不必操心太多，只要每月乖乖奉上点钱就可以打点这些人。也有和尚尼姑们喜欢自己做几个小菜，弄点小酒，优哉游哉。总之，和尚不用打杂做家务。

和尚的任务就是写经文、发表经文，当然，要发表高质量经文却不是如此简单之事。木鱼要上好木鱼，大钟也要高级大钟，这是必须的。除此之外，一定要有一颗对佛祖的虔诚之心，这颗心还要经受得住各种煎熬和考验，还要有顽强的意志和坚强的毅力，更重要的是，经文的内容要么是逻辑论证要么是实验论证的，论点鲜明论据充分是非常重要的。发表经文一般要求一级刊物上，而且一般只计算第一作者的和尚，其余第N作者只能跟着沾点光算作半篇而已，没啥意义。和尚修行期满，依据所发表经文数目就可以授予称号。例如硕士僧授予硕士称号需要1.5篇经文，而博士僧授予博士称号需要2.5篇经文。保福寺的老衲们大都财大气粗，对此些经文并不放在眼里。他们大都关心的是能否在大雷音寺的杂志上发表，此杂志号称“菩提评论快报（PRL）”，每周一期，每期15～20篇左右经文，面向全世界各大寺院征稿。保福寺既然是大寺，且是领袖群伦型的，就得在菩提快报发表相当数量的经文。据保守估计，计入本寺和别寺合作项目，保福寺去年平均每周一篇经文登上此快报，强劲势头不可阻挡。但保福寺毕竟僧多粥少，不少老衲未能收获一篇此类经文，诚感惶惶不可终日。遂不断压制贫僧们努力敲鱼撞钟，寻找灵感，摸索到佛祖的福音。

本系列要讲的故事，就是保福寺众和尚，主要是博士僧在寻找佛祖福音过程中发生的故事。期间光怪陆离、啼笑皆非、悲喜交加、嗔怒无常，各显众僧百态，别有一番趣味。在远离俗世的诵经大堂，众僧们经历各种苦难的煎熬，究竟谁能逐鹿中关、修成正果？老衲们各显神通、指点江山，究竟哪个能功德圆满？

众位看客，莫急莫急。且听贫僧慢慢道来。

鐵凝：好的婚姻是等出來的

【明報專訊】今年50歲的中國作家協會主席鐵凝結婚了，丈夫是55歲的經濟學家、燕京華僑大學校長華生。鐵凝透露，16年前，著名作家冰心對她講了句：你不要找，你要等。她說，冰心老人這番贈言對她遲遲沒有找對象影響好大。

上月底低調結婚

最新一期廣州《南方周末》雜誌刊登了對鐵凝夫婦的專訪。鐵凝和華生是於4月26日在北京低調辦理結婚登記手續。他們沒有透露他們相識和相愛的時間，但雙方都否認一見鍾情。「在我們這樣的年齡、這樣的閱歷，能真正開始一段情感之旅，不容易。」

2006年11月，鐵凝當選作協主席，由於她還是單身，其情感生活成了外界關注的焦點。「我不是獨身主義者。我對婚姻也有好的期望，可我從來都是做好了失望的準備，因為我覺得做好了失望的準備，才可能迎來希望。」

鐵凝說，她對愛情和婚姻的感覺是在美國作家、《紅字》作者霍桑的故居前清晰起來的。1985年她第一次去美國，特別參觀了霍桑的故居。她曾讀過霍桑的傳記，知道他是一個性情暴烈的人，但婚姻給了他幸福的生活。「霍桑最好的作品都是在結婚後寫出來的。」

1991年5月，鐵凝看望冰心，「老人說：『你不要找，你要等。』她的話在我聽來充滿禪機。一個人在等，一個人也沒有找。我對愛情有耐心，但不希望它消失。」

美国著名学府的网络直播课程

美国著名学府的网络直播课程

◆ http://mitworld.mit.edu/

麻省理工学院（MIT）建设和管理，多是名家到学校的演讲，讲座，以录像方式播放，只能在网上观看。

◆ http://ocw.mit.edu/index.html MIT OpenCourseWare 社会开放课程

例如，Alan Turing: Codebreaker and AI Pioneer（阿兰·图灵：电码译员和人工智能先锋）

The Wonders of Electricity and Magnetism（神奇的电和磁）

◆ http://itunes.stanford.edu/ 斯坦福大学

◆ http://webcast.berkeley.edu/

　 http://itunes.berkeley.edu/ 　

伯克莱大学，除了讲堂课精采外，还有特别活动

◆ http://www.oid.ucla.edu/webcasts/courses/

有心理系、太空科学、经济、政治学及生命科学等的演讲,但只有小部分任公众下载

◆　http://webcast.rice.edu/

Rice University

◆ http://podcast.ucsd.edu/

圣地亚哥大学 UC San Diego

◆ http://boilercast.itap.purdue.ed ... hatisboilercast.htm

普渡大学 Purdue University

◆ http://blog.wku.edu/podcasts/

Western Kentucky University

◆ http://podcast.york.cuny.edu/lectures/

York College，The City University of New York

◆ http://webcast.georgetown.edu/

Georgetown University

◆ http://uc.princeton.edu/main/

University Channel，由Princeton大学发起

◆ http://www.learnoutloud.com/Free-Audio

非大学类的知识网站，有甘地、肯尼迪、Martin Luther King等名人的演讲

http://chem8.org/

http://chem8.org/

16件小事,保你长寿

任何时候，不健康的生活习惯都是袭击健康的杀手，而健康习惯则让生命受益。所以，健康更取决于习惯，来自于日常生活的点点滴滴。

晨起先饮水

每天早晨起床，在未进食之前喝一大杯水，对机体既是一次极大的补偿，又是一种有效的净化。清晨，胃内食物已经排空，新饮进的水约经过21秒钟就能到达身体的每一个角落，促进全身的吐故纳新。首先，洗涤机体，清除污染，保证细胞的新陈代谢。其次，滋润机体，避免疾患。稀释血液，降低血粘度，有效地预防心脏病和中风。还有助于机体代谢，废物排泄，补充睡眠中随呼吸、汗液等丧失的水分，消除疲劳。

吃一顿营养早餐

吃一顿优质的早餐可以让人在早晨思考敏锐，反应灵活，并提高学习和工作效率，而且有吃早餐习惯的人比较不容易发胖，记忆力也比较好。
早餐必须具备三项条件：一要有足够水分；二要有足够的能量；三要有足够的蛋白质。一顿理想的抗压早餐是富含蛋白质、碳水化合物以及纤维的早餐，如由稀饭（碳水化合物）、瘦肉或鸡蛋（蛋白质）、一个水果或一碟凉拌蔬菜（纤维素）构成的早餐。

少发脾气

根据研究，“敌意”低的人，血液的带氧腺体数目也会增加，带氧腺体就像高速公路的开道车，可以让人的免疫细胞快速抵达病菌入侵现场。把坏脾气丢掉，更乐观的面对生活。研究表明，大笑可以减少压力荷尔蒙。

感恩生活

多感谢生活给予自己的东西，多帮助他人。一项针对两千七百名美国社区志工的调查显示，这群人罹患心脏病、忧郁症及传染病的比率，比没有担任志工的人少2～5倍。做善事之后，脑啡释放的量会提高，从而增加快乐、减少因忧愁造成的压力蛋白。

眼睛累了要休息

缓解眼睛疲劳的最佳方式是让眼睛休息，方法简单极了：当你打电话时，如果不需要读什么或者写什么，就把眼睛闭上。
眼睑是眼睛最好的按摩师，特意眨眼并转动眼球10次，一天重复若干次，有助于清洁眼睛并能缓解眼部疲劳。

每日多吃蔬果

根据调查，多吃蔬菜水果的人，可以减轻癌症与心脏病的风险。建议你，把蔬果放在最容易看到、随手就可以拿到的地方，提醒自己多吃蔬果，也可以把蔬果切丁，当做点心，代替那些会令你发胖的饼干、零食。

每日运动30分钟

许多研究都指出，每天运动30分钟就可以得到运动的好处，包括预防心脏病、糖尿病、骨质疏松、肥胖、忧郁症等，甚至有研究指出，运动可以让人感到快乐，增强自信心。如果你很久没有运动，可以从走路运动开始，走路是最简单、最省钱的心肺功能训练，每天快走20～30分钟，持续走下去，一定能感受到许多好处。

挺胸抬头

美国密苏里州大学的医生说：“抬起头来将会令你外表年轻一些，而且可以减少患病机会。”当你抬头挺胸时，胸膛会挺起，肺活量可增加20～50％，空气吸入多，身体组织所获得的氧气量也就随之增多。当一个人获得较多氧气供应时，身体就不易疲倦。同时，抬头也会减轻腰骨痛，因为挺胸的姿势会减少脊椎的弧度。

吃饭时把电视关掉

研究儿童肥胖和收视习惯的学者发现，儿童在吃饭的时候看电视，通常会容易导致肥胖，且会延长收看电视的时间高达70分钟。所以不管大人或小孩，吃饭时，最好关掉电视，专心的吃饭，好好享受桌上的食物。

停止擅服抗生素

不要因为身体不适就随意的服用抗生素。尤其在感冒以后，因为90％的感冒属于病毒性，抗生素根本没有用，抗生素只对细菌感染有效。服用不必要的抗生素会助长癌细胞产生针对抗生素的抗体，这样当你真正需要抗生素时，可能就不管用了。你只在严重的皮肤感染、喉部链球菌感染、肺炎等真正的细菌感染时才需要抗生素，而这需要医生判定。

杜绝“病从口入”

手在很多疾病的传播中发挥着极为重要的传播媒介作用，沾染有细菌与病毒的手接触口腔及鼻子周围的皮肤，都可以经手的传送作用而造成感染与传播，所以，“病经手入”并非言过其辞。因此，勤洗手也就显得格外重要了。

再忙也要和家人亲密

美国心脏病权威、曾任前美国总统克林顿医疗顾问的欧宁胥历经数十年研究发现，拥有亲密关系可以预防与减缓心脏病，甚至可以提供生命坚强的抵抗力。不管外在生活多么多彩多姿，每个人都需要拥有可以打开心扉，分享心事的亲密关系。所以不管再忙，每天也要和家人聊聊天，滋养彼此的亲密关系。

戒烟

抽一根烟会产生超过4000种化学物质，其中四十几种会致癌，吸烟者死于肺癌的人数是不吸烟者的16倍。戒除吸烟的习惯，不仅对自己的健康有利，也是对家人爱的表现。因为二手烟比一手烟还毒，已被世界卫生组织列为头号致癌物质，而孩子往往是二手烟最大的受害者。超过四分之一的婴儿猝死是因为父母吸烟，导致婴儿吸入二手烟引起的。二手烟也会增加儿童气喘的次数，且加重病情。

打开窗户把大自然请进屋

最好的消灭病菌的方法就是通风，在阳光和空气流动的作用下，病毒甚至在几分钟内就会被杀灭。因此建议大家要保持室内通风，尽管天气冷，室内也要保持良好的空气流通。

适当晒太阳

美国纽约州精神病学会专家说，阳光是一种天然的兴奋剂。最好的提神方法是晨曦中做30分钟的散步或慢跑。因为这可以使身体贮存大量的维生素D，有助于维护骨骼和牙齿的强健。太阳下还是最好物理消毒场所，所以，养成经常晾晒被褥和衣物的好习惯吧。

坚信今晚睡得更好

许多人把工作上的事也带到了床上，他们躺在床上却想着白天的工作，或者计算自己的账本，甚至在脑子里和老板打架。如果你发现自己也是这样，不妨找一把“焦虑之椅”：上床睡觉前，先安静地坐在上面十分钟，仔细回顾一天中发生过的事情，你可能什么问题都解决不了，但至少可以在脑子里给它们排个次序，找到明天最先要解决的事情。

增強記憶小貼士

增強記憶小貼士

【明報專訊】●若要牢記初相識朋友的名字，在交談中應多呼喚其名

●睡前1小時閱讀的資訊，記得特別好

●壓力阻礙記憶，若你極力想記起鎖匙放在哪兒，應先冷靜下來，想想曾做過些什麼事，相關記憶或會突然湧現腦海

●要記住他人名字，可透過外貌聯想法。例如剛認識一名叫John Plant的人，可幻想他的頭頂有一盆植物(Plant意思為植物)，畫面愈奇特，記憶效果愈好

●自組易記密碼，如選一個4字母單字，將它與手機的電話鍵盤配對，如DUCK的相應號碼是3825

诺奖得主建议中国科学家要有动机和天份

发信人: wonderlich (左岸，遁去), 信区: Macromolecules
标 题: 诺奖得主建议中国科学家要有动机和天份（转）
发信站: BBS 未名空间站 (Tue May 1 23:02:16 2007)

http://news.sina.com.cn/c/p/2006-09-12/211710990967.shtml

央视新闻频道《新闻会客厅》9月12日播出节目《诺奖得主对话青年学生》，以下为节
目内容。

　　董 倩：您好观众朋友欢迎走进《新闻会客厅》。诺贝尔奖是人尽皆知的一个奖项
，这个奖项在国际科技界它的影响是其它任何一个奖项所无法比拟的，从1901年到现在
，诺贝尔奖已经颁发给了将近600位在各个领域做出杰出贡献的人，他们中的每一位都
是值得我们去
尊敬的对象。这两天在北京就云集了几位曾经获得诺贝尔奖的人。

　　9月5日，七位自然科学领域的诺贝尔奖得主汇集北京，参加“2006年诺贝尔奖获得
者北京论坛”，共同探讨“生命科学与人类健康”的话题。这么多诺奖获得者和代表国
际学术最高水平的专家同时来到中国，是国内科技界的一桩盛事。

　　参加此次论坛的演讲者分别来自美国、德国和以色列，个个都是国际科技界大师级
的人物。其中，1998年诺贝尔生理学奖得主、美国得克萨斯大学教授费里德·穆拉德；
和1988年诺贝尔化学奖获得者、德国科学家哈特穆特·米歇尔，成为国内各科研机构和
专业院校关注的对象。

　　董 倩：今天演播室就请到了其中的两位，让我们先通过一个短片简短地了解一下
他们。

　　他从小立志成为一名医生，如今，他实现了自己的愿望，成为一名出色的内科医生
，还承担了大量医学、药理学和临床药理学的教学工作，20世纪70年代末，他发现一氧
化氮的分子信号物质，从而揭开了硝酸甘油治疗原理之谜，他被人称为伟哥之父，但他
并不喜欢这个称呼，他依然执著，探求一氧化氮在神经传递与记忆、神经变性等多个方
面的独特功能。在它的研究基础上，一氧化氮传到作用的研究成为过去20年中生物发展
最快的生物学领域之一。他就是1998年诺贝尔生理学或医学奖得主美国德克萨斯大学教
授费里德·穆拉德。

　　他出生在一个农民之家，少年时期在流动图书馆打工的经历，给了他博览群书的机
会。后来走上研究分子生物学的道路，他是个执著而有自信的人，为了证明教科书上的
错误，他义无反顾地确定了自己的研究方向。他凭借这项研究在40岁的时候，获得了诺
贝尔化学奖。他是一名德国人，却先后被美国、荷兰和中国三所科学院选为外籍院士，
还有更多的研究机构争相授予他各种荣誉头衔，成为科学界的一个传奇人物。他就是
1988年诺贝尔化学奖获得者哈特穆特·米歇尔。

　　董 倩：在简短了解两位诺贝尔奖获得者之后，我们有请他们上场。你好，很高兴
认识您。我先向两位介绍一下，今天参加我们节目的有来自中科院的一些年轻学者，还
有中科院研究生院的一些同学，他们会有一些问题问两位。我想第一个问题是所有的人
都关心的，可能两位已经回答过无数遍了，但是对于中国观众来说还是希望知道这样的
答案，就是你们两位，一位是1988年，一位是1998年，在获得诺贝尔奖一刹那，知道这
个消息的时候你们当时的心情是什么样的，当时正在做什么？

　　米歇尔：我记得当我得知我获得诺贝尔奖学金的时候，正在美国的耶鲁大学参加一
个学术会议。当时我正在会间休息，有一个女士递给我一张纸，并告诉我，路透社收到
消息，我获得了诺贝尔奖。我不得不说这并不是一件值得令我高兴的事，因为这个奖项
会改变你的生活，你自己可以掌握的时间越来越少，你的举动越来越不象是你自己。

　　董 倩：我想请问穆拉德先生，您得知您获得1998年诺贝尔奖项的时候，当时在什
么地方，当时心情是怎么样的，吃惊吗？

　　穆拉德：当时我是在家里，我接到了一个电话，是基金会的秘书尼尔斯在电话里告
诉我的，的确，我是非常吃惊的，我之前想我可能会得到这个奖项，我的同事也说我可
能会得到这个奖项，但是在接到这个电话以前没人能够确定。我在电话中得知我获奖的
时候心情是非常激动的。你的生活发生了戏剧性的变化，你变得非常忙碌。

　　董 倩：为什么说两位都提到在得到这个奖项之后，你们的生活都发生了巨大的改
变？这种改变是在学术上的？还是在生活上的？

　　米歇尔：主要的一点就是从获奖的那一刻开始，你就成了受人关注的专家。当然对
于很多组织来说，他们都希望能够接触你，想得到你的建议，特别是你的支持。忽然间
，可能至少有二十个组织要求你这样或那样，你会吃惊自己过于全能了。在正式宣布获
奖以后，第一件要面对的就是记者的提问。面对记者，你不会有休息的时间，这会持续
好几个月，一直到几个月以后，生活才会稍稍安静一点。同时你要跟社会上不同的人进
行交流，要跟政治界的人物交流、跟经济界的人物交流，所以我的意思是说，我们必须
要抽出时间来做这些和获奖前不同的事情。另外，从科学角度来说，在我得到奖项之前
，我有很多资金在研究上，这是因为在得奖以前我是一个有潜力的新星，大家都乐意资
助我，但是在得到奖项后，不仅得到的赞助承诺少了，既有的资金也被削减了。

　　董 倩：您呢？您刚才说您的生活发生了巨大的改变。

　　穆拉德：我原先以为这些宣传活动，包括公众的注意力可能只会持续几个星期，然
后我的生活就会重新恢复平静。我的注意力也会重新回到我的研究和教学工作上，但事
实上不是这样的。这个奖项我是在八年前获得的，但是一直到现在，各式各样的活动基
本上还是和当初得奖的时候一样频繁，就像从米歇尔教授那听到的一样，必须要花很多
时间在许许多多的提问和讨论活动上，有大学、政治组织、中介机构、各种不同的社会
团体，不管他们是什么样的组织，都会发出请你授课的邀请，你很难拒绝他们的请求。
因为提出请求的人当中许多人都是你的同事和朋友，不管他们是做什么的，你都会认为
他们是重要的人，所以你很难拒绝他们。当然你还要花时间去做自己的工作，所以你的
生活会变得非常忙碌。现在我还像以前那样努力工作，但是更多的时间却花在了旅途上
，花在了讲课上，别人会觉得你在每一个领域都是专家，你本身是做什么的已经不重要
了，关键是你是诺贝尔奖获得者，所以你理所应当能够提出专业的建议，并且解决问题
。同时，你成了一个国际性的大使和外交家，我以前不觉得诺贝尔奖带来的是奖项的肯
定，它的作用仅仅只是基金的支持而已。但是因为它，你必须要到处去旅行，并且给世
界各地的总统提出政策上的建议，你帮助全世界制定有关教育、研究、健康等方面的政
策，各种各样的问题，这对自己来说是一场灾难，你会感到很累。

　　董 倩：我们今天之所以请来很多同学就是因为他们有很多问题想直接跟两位交流
，接下来有哪位同学有问题尽管提。

　　观 众：想问一下您，德国人一般给人的感觉是严谨、认真的，您觉得你符合这一
种风范的吗？另外，您在实验室里和在生活中所表现出来的风格会有差异和不同吗？谢
谢。

　　米歇尔：我希望至少我的私生活不要成为一个公共话题，有时候人们在机场认出我
来，并且向我请教，我不喜欢这样的情况。在实验室里，我个人不喜欢成为一个中心，
在我变得活跃以前，我倾向于吸取别人的经验，所以我不喜欢成为一个明星，因为星星
总是散发光芒，我更希望能够吸收别人所散发的光芒，而在我脑海里构成一幅新的图片
，能够对一些事物有更多的理解。

　　董 倩：你们有问题吗？

　　观 众：您好，很希望到国外去深造，想问一下，您认为学术环境对于科学研究的
影响究竟有多大吗？谢谢。

　　米歇尔：我想主要的区别，美国的体制和欧洲的体制之间有什么区别，我一直在德
国，的确，在德国我得到了很多的资金帮助，在这里进行我的研究，同时我们可以自由
使用这些资金，你不需要申请这些资金，在美国使用资金需要申请，所以这个体系是不
一样的。这就使得我们可以自主地来解决问题，并且我们也就有可能来从事我们自己的
项目研究。当然我也得到了一些邀请，比如说从斯坦福等等许多美国的大学发来的这种
邀请，他们给我很高的工资，比我在德国所得到的工资还高，并且他们给我配备了秘书
，还有很多助手，我是不是应该选择去那里，在那里能得到更好的待遇，我始终认为我
的研究是最重要的，但在那里我的研究是不是能够同样顺利进行，还是会有一些风险因
素的，我想做研究是最重要的，在德国更好，因为在这里我有很多资金，并且我在这里
可以有很多重要的发现。

　　董 倩：有很多问题问米歇尔先生，我有一个问题要问穆拉德先生，因为我知道您
现在有一个大家庭，有五个儿女，九个孙子辈的孩子，这样一个和睦的气氛是不是有利
于你搞科研？

　　穆拉德：我有一个很大的家庭，在我大学的时候就已经有了，在我得到我医学学位
和博士学位的时候，就已经有四个孩子了，到我结束实习工作的时候，我已经有五个孩
子了，并且还有自己的孙子，他们现在在美国各地，他们当中没有一个人成为科学家，
我认为是我的原因他们才选择不朝科学的方向发展。我很少回家，因为我的工作非常辛
苦，我认为他们也做出了他们的决定，因为他们不想过复杂的生活，需要比我更简单的
生活，但有趣的是，他们有两个人和医生结婚了，我想这是一种很好的结合，但是任何
事情都是可能的，我的妻子，她愿意做妈妈，而且她是一个很棒的妈妈，除了养育孩子
之外，她还做家务活，这让我能把更多的时间花在我的医院，花在我的实验室工作，都
是她帮助了我，她喜欢我的工作，如果没有她，我是难以取得现在的成就的，她是一个
非常伟大的母亲，非常伟大。

　　董 倩：诺贝尔奖金获得者约翰巴丁教授，当年在访问中科院物理所的时候，曾经
半开玩笑地说了这么一句话，他说要想得到诺贝尔奖应该具备三个条件，第一，努力，
第二，机遇，第三，合作精神，我不知道你们两位怎么看待他的这种说法？

　　穆拉德：我认为要取得成功，并且获得诺贝尔奖，需要更多的东西，比这三点更多
，这三点是非常重要的，但是还有很多重要的其它因素，比如说我们的毅力、决断力、
决定心、动机、创造力、风险处理，还有许许多多的运气。

　　董 倩：你呢？

　　米歇尔：我想很多人都对此很感兴趣，我们需要有激情，我们需要有动机，我们需
要有很多你自己的特质等等，我想很多是你自己的东西，你需要有一些自由，那就是你
可以靠这种自由来有自己的想法和创意，这样可以支配属于自己的行为，这一点是非常
重要的，有你自己的东西，我想这对于好多人来说都是非常重要的，尽管他做出了很多
努力，但是不能没有这种自由。有很多因素能够帮助你取得成功，所以这是一个非常复
杂的一种综合。当然其中还有很重要的一点就是好运气，因为你难以预计自己能有什么
样的研究方向，二十年之后、三十年之后你是不是还处在一个非常重要的领域，你无法
知道你的研究领域到那时还是不是很重要。

　　董 倩：好的环境对于成为诺贝尔获得者有影响吗？

　　穆拉德：我有自己的独立空间，我的家庭给我很多建议，给我很多爱，但是我能够
自己做决定，我曾经有过很好的导师，其中的一个导师也是诺贝尔奖获得者，我们经常
在一起谈论学术问题，谈论诺贝尔奖，我很敬重他，他是个非常聪明的人，但是他也不
会总是正确的。这让我明白即使你得了诺贝尔奖，你也不是能够解决所有的问题，也会
有错的时候。所以这影响了我对学生的态度，我从来不会要求我的学生应该如何去做事
情，或者什么事情不可以做，我试着用以前激励我的方式激励他们，所以他们会有种参
与感，并且有努力研究的动力，如果他们想做实验，我说可以，你自己决定，而且我希
望通过他们自己的努力，能得到结果，我从来不跟他们说不，希望他们自己汲取教训。
就像米歇尔说的：你可以犯错误，犯了错误后你可以吃一堑长一智，的确是这样的。

　　米歇尔：我想教授说得很对，我鼓励我的学生要独立工作，我自己过去也是非常独
立的一个学生，我只跟我的导师交流过两次，讨论一些学术的问题，其余都是我自己做
研究的，我的导师也告诉我要成为一个独立思考的人，照自己的想法去做。我想对于学
生来说，有一点是非常清楚的，有些学生是需要得到一些指导的，但另一些学生则是选
择自由的方式，我们必须找出适合每个学生的方法因材施教。

　　董 倩：因为在中国很多青年科学家，他们想成为诺贝尔奖获得者，我们从他们那
里得到信息，除了刚才说的这几点之外，我们也总结出了几点，如果说要得到诺贝尔奖
，恐怕也应该具备这些素质，我们一起来看一下。

　　米歇尔：我对于中国年轻科学家的建议，那就是你们要有一个强烈的动机以及天份
。动机是你激励自己的因素，你要激励自己去获得成功，并且你要认识到自己做的事情
是重要的，这一点对于年轻科学家来说是非常重要的，但是你不能总是固守在某一个领
域，你要睁开自己的眼睛，看看左，看看右，要找到更好的机会，要研究自己的课题。
同时你还要关注其它的研究领域，这样你就会丰富自己的想法，我想这是非常重要的，
不然的话你只能闭上眼睛，局限在自己的研究领域里，只是待在房间里工作，坐井观天
。所以你必须要有这种灵活性，你们要有一个目标，但是同时你要非常灵活。

　　董 倩：很重要的观点。两位怎么看待这几个条件，天分、执着和专业，它们也很
重要吗？

　　米歇尔：毫无疑问，执着是非常重要的，建立一个目标用不了太长的时间，但是我
们要花时间去实现它，并且可能要花很长时间去实现它，并且你要非常专业，成为一个
专业人士。对于天分来说，我想大家都有自己的定义。我身边有很多人，他们都是很有
天分的，我当然希望我能比他们更聪明。但是你也可以弥补你天分上的不足，那就是付
出更多的汗水，做更多的工作，我想在这里最重要一点就是你的执着，你的投入和你的
专注。

　　董 倩：是不是更重要的就是坚持？

　　米歇尔：幸运也是非常重要的，没有执着的话就没有幸运。

　　董 倩：因为刚才我说到了您的简历，是在40岁那年上您获得了诺贝尔化学奖，在
这样一个年轻的岁数得到了这么一个重要的奖项对于一个科学家来说是好事，还是从某
种程度上来说已经到巅峰了，不可能再前进了？

　　米歇尔：我希望我的研究效果不会因为获奖而有所降低，在我研究的领域里，我们
的实验室还是处在一个领先的地位上，我想，目前唯一的竞争对手只会是我的学生，他
们在我的实验室里得到了一个很好的机会。除此之外，我相信我们已经有了一些最关键
的新发现，我们想要找出答案，他们也真的想要为人类贡献一些新成果，这就是我们的
动力。同一个科学家有可能获得五次诺贝尔奖，同样的一个研究机构，也有可能获得两
次，所以我很希望能得到第二个诺贝尔奖项。

　　董 倩：同样是诺贝尔奖项获得者，怎么看待他在这样一个年纪得到这个奖项，会
不会太年轻了，会不会让他太骄傲了？

　　穆拉德：我们以前也讨论过这个话题，我们有一些科学家，在他们年轻的时候，三
十岁、四十岁的时候就得到了诺贝尔奖，这是比较常见的事情，但大多数的科学家是在
六十或者是七十岁时才得到这个奖。我认为如果你年轻的时候就得到这个奖会更累，因
为你未来还有很长的时间，还要做很多的工作，这样你就非常累，你的负担就会非常大
。我们也会把很多个人的时间、个人的生活都作为牺牲的代价，因为你没有时间去照顾
你的家人，因为你太忙了，你要到处讲课，到处旅行，甚至你没有时间检查个人的账单
，没有时间跟朋友聊天，生活太忙了，这一点是非常重要，对于诺贝尔获得者来说，这
时候你没有自己的生活。

　　董 倩：其实我早就想问了，您和另外一个科学家是分享了1998年的医学和生理学
奖，奖金是怎么分的？

　　穆拉德：他们把它给分成两部分，一分为二，如果有三个人就分成三份，每人得一
份，但是这些奖金跟你以后所获得的报酬相比，只是很小的一部分，你会有公司的咨询
费、讲课费等等，诺贝尔的奖金很多吗？其实并不是。

　　董 倩：今天我们请来了很多年轻的科学家，还有年轻的学生，我想请两位谈一下
，这次来中国，对于中国的年轻的科学家有什么样的印象？

　　米歇尔：现在他们有很多的想法，有很多的激励因素，我已经看到这些年轻人是多
么充满活力，比二十年前的年轻人更有活力和想法，这是我看到的最大的不同，他们有
自己的目标，中国的科学家发生了很大变化，他们希望有自己的未来，我想未来是属于
这些年轻的聪明的年轻人，我见过世界各地不同的人，并且我对其中很多人进行过培训
，他们当中有很多都来自亚洲，他们的一些研究项目、一些教育项目，都是很先进的。
中国政府现在正在用大量的投入来进行教育研究工作，我想他们未来的这些投入、投资
会更多，所以在这方面有很多机会。对于我们来说，最明显的就是在十年前、十五年前
，当中国和亚洲其他的学者去美国的时候，他们不想回来。但是现在他们开始回到自己
的祖国了，因为这里有很多工作，有很多机会，有很多事情可以做，我想这一点是非常
好的，因为大家都希望能够回到自己的家园，在家园里找自己的机会。

　　董 倩：你们怎么看待到今天为止中国还没有出现一名获得诺贝尔奖金的获得者，
中国有没有必要去争取这样的一个奖项？

　　穆拉德：我想随着大量的投入和你们未来的计划，我想会有的，但这要花一定的时
间，比如说十年、二十年，你们一定会有中国的诺贝尔奖得主。

　　董 倩：这么短的时间吗？

　　穆拉德：是。

　　米歇尔：我也认为中国迟早会出现诺贝尔奖的获奖者。在我看来，唯一的方法是必
须要有许多年轻的学生，并且给予他们一定的责任和资金去做独立的研究，在他们研究
进行的过程中，许多新的事物将会被发现。另外一方面，我们也要认识到，比如说美国
投入在基础研究上的预算是很大的，有四百亿美元，是德国的十倍还要多，因为资金的
投入对课题的研究是非常重要的，很多诺贝尔奖的获得者都出自美国，就是因为他们有
资金，很多的研究体系在这方面我们是无法跟美国竞争的，在这方面中国可以做得更有
竞争力一些。

　　董 倩：中国的学者、研究者现在就设定一个目标，我要得到诺贝尔奖吗？还是说
随他发展去？

　　穆拉德：我认为对于中国的这些科学家来说，就像世界其它地方的科学家一样，不
应该把精力放在诺贝尔奖上，他们应该集中做一些切合实际的研究，改善普通人或是患
者的生活方式、生活环境等等也许是最重要的，这才是我们的目标，如果你的目标就是
要得到诺贝尔奖，我想99.9%的研究将会令你非常失望，我想有很多著名的诺贝尔奖获
得者在日常生活里可能仅仅是一个普通的化学家，还有更多的科学家也做了很多事情，
他们虽然没有得过诺贝尔奖，但是他们同样是非常成功的，他们有自己的专业，即使不
能得到这个奖项，他们也有专长，受人尊重。

　　董 倩：你们两位可能都知道韩国的黄禹锡这个科学家，他对科学的态度可能某种
程度上在中国也是存在的，就是学术造假，作为诺贝尔奖金的获得者，你们觉得学术的
诚信对于一个科学家来说有多重要？

　　米歇尔：我想这是非常重要的一点，我们的科学家要诚实，这是非常重要的，要对
社会诚实。同时每个人都会有自己的判断，你无法在科学上欺瞒得太久，这是非常容易
被揭穿的。我想对于他们来说，主要的研究结果要经得住别人的考验，我想这点是非常
重要的，事实上我们要在某个领域取得成就，获得成功，我们要确保自己在这个领域是
对的、正确的，我认为诚信问题，不管是科学界的诚信，还是生活中的诚信都是至关重
要的，如果科学家按照这种方式去做事，他会先设定一个目标，告诉大家这些设计是怎
么做的，只是提出一个设想，当实验证明不是这样时，那样他们是永远不会得到诺贝尔
奖学金的。

　　穆拉德：我完全同意，我们还有一个非常重要的问题，就是你自己要非常诚信，不
要仅仅靠自己的工作，那是不够的。

　　董 倩：这是一个学术诚信的问题，还有一个问题可能在科学界经常发生，就是对
一个问题不同的人有不同的看法，当你们遇到这样的问题的时候，你们会怎么面对？

　　穆拉德：我想每个人他都有自己不同的观点，他应该提出自己的争论性意见，大家
不可能在任何时候都有完全一致性的意见，最后大家要做出正确的实验，来证明谁对谁
错，这才是科学的行为方式。这就是科学，我们有不同的意见，不同的分歧，但是我们
要通过这种实验看看谁对谁错，当然每个人事先会都有一个想法和观点，这种是可以允
许的，但是我们都是科学家，做了多年研究工作的科学家，我们都是有不同观点的，这
是很正常的。

　　米歇尔：我们在一些领域永远不会有同样的意见，大家在很长时间之内都有争论，
都有不同的意见，我们都会提出自己争论性的意见，比如德国的科学家，在19世纪20年
代的时候，很多德国的科学家还有英国的科学家，他们在争论，他们对不同的特性有不
同的看法，但是最后他们可能都是对的，这种原料、那种原料，性质怎么样，那可能也
是对的，但是他们一直在争辩，这种争辩是非常正常的，在不久的将来，我们可以发现
谁最后正确的，谁是对的，但是这种争论持续了86年，他们不是因为分歧在争辩，而是
他们有不同的看法，这种争辩是允许的，是可以的。

　　董 倩：还有其他的同学有问题吗？

　　观 众：米歇尔先生您好，我想问一个问题，在我们做科学的时候，选择科学的这
种课题的时候，在中国，现在我们这些做科学的，现在遇到一个问题，就是当我们选择
一个科学的研究对象的时候，我们经常要考虑，这个研究对象，这么一个课题大概花三
年到五年时间能不能做出来，有多么大的风险，如果这个风险非常大，我们很可能就放
弃这个课题了。我想问您当初在选择这个课题的时候，有没有考虑到很大的一个风险，
很有可能你花了很多年时间都没有做出来，你会怎么办？

　　米歇尔：有一种人始终会相信自己最终一定能够成功，我就是这样的一个人。但是
我不想让我的学生承担这样的风险。但是他们主动想要去承担风险，去用三分之一的时
间以及不多的经费来完成这个项目，我们很希望他们能够充满自信地去做一个项目，给
他们一半甚至更多的工作时间在这个项目上，我们想要看看最后的结果究竟会发展成怎
样？

　　观 众：我有一个问题想要问穆拉德先生，我注意到前段时间国际上有人评论中国
的科技界的一些事情，我希望穆拉德先生对我们中国的科技界您有什么建议，或者对我
们科技界有什么评价？谢谢。

　　穆拉德：我认为中国人走的路是对的，刚才我也说过，中国能够吸引海外公民回到
祖国，回来当教授，寻找发展机会，这是非常好的，你们要坚持做这一点，继续向这个
方向发展。在中国的其它方面，你们还有一个强项，那就是你们传统的中医。这是你们
的优势，有许多国家也在这个领域与你们进行竞争与合作，有很多研究很重要，其中很
多人的工作在这方面是非常有效的。现在在亚洲有许多高发疾病，跟西方的一些重大疾
病一样。比如出现了越来越多的糖尿病人，因为你们的生活方式更加接近西方人，比如
快餐越来越多等等，同时你们也有很多肿瘤疾病、心血管疾病、呼吸道疾病等等，这些
都是非常重要的问题，我们都需要去解决这些问题，所以我认为有许多令人激动的研究
项目，有很多问题需要我们去解决，我想你们当中有些人可能会说，自己感兴趣的领域
究竟是什么呢？自己是不是可以在这些领域做出更大的贡献？对中国做出贡献，对整个
世界做出贡献，在这方面我们认为可以做很多工作。

YOU AND YOUR RESEARCH

http://mitbbs.com/article_t/Macromolecules/20084076.html

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发信人: DigitalPig (North! | 想做Polymer Physics), 信区: Macromolecules
标 题: YOU AND YOUR RESEARCH [zz]
发信站: BBS 未名空间站 (Thu May 3 16:36:00 2007), 转信

金玉良言-- YOU AND YOUR RESEARCH
周四, 2007-05-03 23:24 — color

转贴自 http://www.rangang.com/archives/9
老马翻译

这是大科学家Richard Hamming的著名讲演，于1986年在贝尔通讯研究中心给200多名
Bellcore的科学家们所做。

演讲者介绍：Richard Hamming，前贝尔实验室著名计算机科学家，美国the Naval
Postgraduate School in Monterey教授。1968年因其在“数值方法，自动编码系统，
错误检测和纠错码”方面的贡献获得图灵奖。Richard Hamming，习惯性中文译作理查
德·海明，1950年发明了“海明码”，可以检验出两位错误并修正一位错误，是每个计
算机专业学生的必修内容。

做大事，成大业 YOU AND YOUR RESEARCH - RICHARD HAMMING

我演讲的题目是“你和你的研究”。这不是有关研究管理方面的，而是关于你如何独自
做研究的。我也可以作别的方面的专题演讲–但是不，今天是专门谈你。我不是谈什么
平常的“车轱辘转”（run-of-mill）的研究，我是谈重大的研究。并且，为了描述重
大的研究，我将时常要谈及相当诺贝尔奖那一类的“大事”。这和获奖不获奖无关，我
指的是我们认为有重大价值的事情。如相对论，香农(Shannon) （信息理论之父，译者
注）信息论，以及其他杰出的理论 —- 这就是我要讲的。

那么，我是怎样搞起这样的研究的呢？还在Los Alamos(美国洛斯阿拉莫斯国家实验室
Los Alamos National Laboratory的所在地，1943年由能源部为研制原子弹而建立。译
者注）的时候，我负责运行有关计算机方面的事，以便那些科学家们、物理学家们可以
去干他们的（大）事了。我无非是个“跑龙套”的。尽管我在身体上与他们无异，但我
还是与他们不同。说实话，我挺嫉妒的。我见过Feynman (1965年获诺贝尔物理学奖。
译者注)，我见过Fermi和Teller，我见过奥本海默，尤（里乌斯）·罗伯特(
Oppenheimer)(1902 -1967美国原子物理学家, 原子弹计划主持人。译者注)，我见过贝
蒂(Hans Albrecht, 1906-, 美国物理学家, 曾获1967诺贝尔物理学奖。译者注)—他就
是我的“老板”。我见过不少非常有才能的人，我于是有兴趣去了解自己与那些正在做
事和已经成事的人之间的差别。（瞧瞧那龙套跑的，啧啧。译者注）

当年我刚到贝尔实验室的时候，我进入到了一个硕果累累的部门。Bode是那时的部门头
，香农(Shannon)也在那里。我一直问自己这样的问题： “为什么”和“差别是什么”
。我于是去读有关的传记、自传，去问他们这样的问题：“你是怎么干起来这样的事的
？” 我试着搞清差别是什么。这就是今天要谈的内容

那么，为什么这样的话题重要呢？那是因为，就我所知，你一生只有一次生命。即使你
相信来世，那也无助于你对待来世的“来世”！为什么你不在这次生命中就做一些意义
重大的事呢，不管你是如何定义你的“意义重大”？我不会去定义它 —- 你懂我的意
思。我将主要谈论科学，因为这是我研究的领域。尽管就我所知，别人也多次告诉我，
我所讲的（道理）也适用于其他很多领域。尽管杰出的工作在很多不同的领域里都具有
相同的特点，我还是将我自己限定在科学的领域。(他老人家的意思是说，他要去当总
统或“政协委员”的话，实在是大材小用，驴头不对马嘴。译者注)

为了让你感觉到专门针对你个人的，我必须使用第一人称。我必须让你抛开谦逊并对自
己说：“对，我想做一流的事。” 我们的社会会对那些着手去做像样的事的人皱起眉
头，他们会怀疑：“你是那块料吗？运气会光顾你吗？或许你侥幸做成某件大事。”
好吧，随这些闲言碎语去吧。我要说的是：你为什么不现在就动手去做一点大事呢？！
你不用告诉别人，但是你可以告诉你自己啊：“对，我就是喜欢做一些重要的事。”

为了达到第二个层次，我自己也得放下谦逊并以第一人称来谈我见识了什么，我做了什
么，以及我听到什么。我会谈及一些人，其中一些你们认识，但我相信当我们离开的时
候，你们不会把我的话当成“话柄”到处说事儿。

请让我从心理学的角度开始，而不是逻辑的。我主要不赞成人们认为重大科学成果是因
运气而成。要说什么事情都和运气有关。但是，想想爱因斯坦，看看他做了多少不凡的
事，那全都是运气使然吗？难道就没有一点可重复性？想想香农，他不仅仅搞了信息理
论，多年以前他就做了一些别的好的事，以及为确保密码学不被攻破而无法公开的其他
一些技术。 他可做了不少的好事。

你一次又一次地看到一个“好”人不只做一件“好”事。但有时一个人一生就做一件事
，关于这一点我们一会儿再谈，只是更多时候是存在可重复性的。我坚持认为运气并不
推及所有的事。我在此引用巴斯德(Louis Pasteur，19世纪法国化学家。译者注)的话
：“运气只光顾有准备之士。” 他的话说出了我心里所想。的确有运气的因素，同时
也有没有运气的成分。有准备之士早晚会找到重要的事并去做它。所以，的确，是有运
气。你去做的那件特定的事是偶然，但是，你总归要做某事却不是(The particular
thing you do is luck, but that you do something is not)。

举一个例子，我当初来到贝尔实验室，和香农共用一个办公室。他在那间办公室搞出了
他的信息理论的同时，我也做出我的编码理论。真有点奇怪，我们两人居然在同一办公
室、同一时刻做了这些“事”—-在某种气氛中。你可以说：那是运气。另一方面你也
可以问：“但是为什么那时所有在贝尔实验室的人只有我们两个做了这事呢？” 是的
，那里面部分是“运气”，部分是“有准备”。 “部分”一概念也是我后面要谈到的
另一问题。所以，尽管我会不时提及“运气”这个问题，但我不会把运气这东西看成与
你的
工作出色与否有没有关联的的唯一砝码（谢谢海涛帮我“掰斥”这句。译者注）我主张
即使不是全部你也要对“运气”有部分掌控。最后我引用牛顿对此的原话： “如果别
人也和我一样努力思考的话，那么他们也许会得出差不多的结论。”（译者注：问问自
己，用一卡车苹果往你头上砸，直把你砸晕看能砸出个什么来。）

包括许多（大）科学家在内的很多人所具有的一个特质，如你所见，就是通常在他们年
轻的时候，他们具有独立的思维并有勇气去追求。举一个例子，爱因斯坦，大概在他12
或14岁的时候，他问自己：如果我有光速那么快，那么光波看起来是个什么样子？现在
他知道了光电理论告诉你不可能有稳定的局部极大 (local maximum)，但是你随着光速
移动，你就能看到局部极大(local maximum)。他能在12或14的时候就难能看到这样的
“矛盾”—-所有的事物在光速条件下看起来不一样。是运气使得他最后创造了相对论
吗？(那是由于)他早就开始积累对此问题的思考。这，就是必要条件，而非充分条件。
所有这些就是我要谈论的“运气”和“非运气”。

那么，把很多聪明的头脑都凑在一起会怎样？这主意听起来不错。这屋子里的听众们大
概都具有从事一流工作还富余的头脑。“有头脑”可用不同的方式来衡量。在数学、物
理、天体物理方面，一般来说，头脑在很大程度上与处理那些“符号”有关。因此标准
的IQ测试就能测定出他们的高智商程度。但另一方面，在其他领域里有点不同。举个例
子，Bill Pfann，此人发明了区域溶化(zome melting)理论，有一天走进我的办公室。
他那时只是模模糊糊地有了一些想法和提出了一些式子。当时我非常清楚此人不太懂数
学，而且有点“茶壶煮汤圆—-有话说不出”的意思。但我觉得他的问题挺有意思的，
于是我就把他的问题带回家琢磨了一下。我最后教他如何使用计算机以便帮他计算自己
的答案。我给他提供了用数学计算的动力，他于是径直干了下去，他们自己部门的人都
没人理解他。终于他收获了在此领域里的全部声誉。只要他有了一个良好的开头，他的
胆怯、他的不熟练、他的含糊不清都会消失。他在其他很多方面也更强了。当然，他也
更加融会贯通(articulate)。（译者注：也许你对articulate会有不同翻译，对我，这里
articulate就是“融会贯通”。原文的字面意思是“他的表达能力也大大增强了”。在
很多方面，如果不是完全意义上的语言问题，表达不清主要原因是没有融会贯通。这里
Hamming并没有教Pfann表达的事，所以我认为是“融会贯通”的问题。）

我还要举另一个人的例子，希望他不在场。一个叫Clogson的家伙。我遇到他的时候正
值我和他一起在John Pierce（贝尔实验室研究总监，在通信理论、电子光学和行波管
研究方面有突出贡献。译者注。）小组一起攻克一个难题，我那时可没觉得他有肚里没
有什么料(I didn’t think he had much)。我问那些和他同过学的同事们：“他在学
校里就这德性吗？”“是的”，他们回答。那好，我还是把他辞退了吧。但是John
Pierce明智地把他保了下来。Clogston最终做成了Clogston Cable (想想吧，能以他的
名字命名东西的人是什么牛吧。译者注)。他并从此一发不可收拾—-一次成功给他带来
了自信和勇气。

成功科学家的重要品质之一就是勇气。一旦你鼓起了自己的勇气并相信自己能解决重要
的问题，那么你就行。如果你觉得你不行，几乎肯定你不会去做。勇气就是香农（
Shannon）所拥有的最重要的东西之一。想一想他的主要定理。他想建立一种编码方法
，但是他并不清楚如何做，所以他搞了一个随机码(a random code)。然后他又卡了壳
。然后他问了一个“不可能”的问题：“一个平均随机码（the average random code
）会怎样？” 他于是去证明了平均码(average code)是arbitrarily good（随意性良
好？），并且因而一定存在至少一个好的编码。除了一个拥有无限勇气的人，还有谁胆
敢有如此勇气想此所想! 这就是伟大的科学家的品质—-他们有勇气。他们不管周围境
况，勇往直前；他们思考、思考、再思考。

年龄是另外一个自然科学家们（physicists）担心的因素。他们总是说你要做就得趁年
轻，否则就别做。爱因斯坦做事就早，所有的量子理论的同仁们做他们的“事”的时候
都早得吓人（disgustingly young）。大多数数学家、理论物理学家，以及天体物理学
家都在他们的早年作出了我们公认的他们最好的成就。这并不是说他们岁数大了以后就
不能做有益的工作，只是我们认为他们最有价值的事是他们年青的时候所为。在另一方
面，在音乐、政治和文学方面，通常的情况是，那些我们仰慕的大作品往往出炉较晚。
我不知道你的情况适 合以上的哪种情况，但年龄总是有影响。

就让我说说为什么年龄产生那些影响。首先，如果你干得不错的话，你就发现你被拉进
了各种各样的委员会，然后你就没法做更多的事了。你也许发现你就和我见到获诺贝尔
奖时的布拉顿 (Brattain, 美国物理学家, 曾获1956年诺贝尔物理学奖)差不多。颁奖
的那天我们全都聚集Arnold大厅（Arnold Auditorium），三个获奖者都上台发表了演
讲。第三个是布拉顿，他差不多噙着泪水说：“我知道这个诺贝尔奖的影响但我不会让
它影响我。我会继续保持做个好的老瓦尔特.布拉顿。” 我于是对自己说：“说的真
好！”。 但是仅仅几周的功夫我就看见（诺贝尔奖）对他产生影响。现在他只能对付
那些“伟大的”的问题了。（译者注：既然如此的大牛科学家都为身外之物所累，我们
又怎可幸免？所以，你没有做好“出名”的准备之前，不可妄自出名。“名”可不是什
么人都可以出的。）

当你成名后再做一些“小”事就难了，香农（Shannon）也难逃此运。有了信息理论(
information theory)，你还能有什么“招”让人叫好呢？（ingot的建议太妙了！受用
。译者）那些伟大的科学家也经常犯这样的“晕”。他们未能继续燃烧心中本可以燎原
的星星之火（They fail to continue to plant the little acorns from which the
mighty oak trees grow）。他们想一下子做成一件大事。这并不是事情的本来面目。
所以，这解释了为什么你明白一旦成名太早你就往往“废”了（sterilize you）。实
际上我要给你我多年的最爱的例子：普林斯顿高级研究院，比起其他的学院，在我看来
，已经毁了无数好的科学家，你只要比比那些科学家去“普高” 之前和之后的成就就
可以分辨这点。他们进去之前可谓超级牛（superb），出来之后就变得一般牛了(only
good)。

从这又引出工作条件的话题，也许有点次序颠倒。多数人想的是最好的工作条件。非常
清楚，事实并非如此，因为人们常常在条件不好的时候富有成果。剑桥物理实验室有史
以来最好的时期恰逢他们实际上是最简陋的时期—-他们做出了有史以来最好的物理。

我给你一个我个人生活的故事。早些时候，对我来讲似乎表明贝尔实验室不像是常说的
搞二进制的计算机程序的人聚集的地方。的确不是。但是每个人的确就是这样做出来的
。（贝尔实验室自1925年成立至今，科学家们共获31000多项专利，他们中的11人获诺
贝尔奖，他们中的其他人选择获得别的奖或其他的东西。译者注。）我本可以去西海岸
找个什么飞机公司的差事也不是什么问题，但是贝尔实验室的人是些让人兴奋的人，而
那些飞机公司的同仁不是。我想了好长一阵子，我去还是不去？我一直在想两全其美的
是。最后我对自己说：“Hamming， 你一直想计算机能做任何事，为什么你不能让他们
写程序？” 首先跳进我脑海的是“毛病”，并促使我非常早的进入自动程序系统。所
以，那些看起来像缺陷的东西，通过换位思考，常常变成你可能拥有的最有价值的财富
。但你似乎不太可能头一次看到它时就说：“哇塞，我不可能召集足够的程序员，那么
我怎能搞成任何大事呢？”

这类的故事多的是。Grace Hopper (Grace Murray Hopper 是共享代码库、编译器验证
软件以及编译器标准的使用的早期倡导者。促进了计算机科学的发展,促成了COBOL的产
生。译者注) 也有一个。我想只要你用点心你就能明白，伟大的科学家常常通过换一个
角度看问题，就能把瑕疵变成财富。例如，许多科学家每当不能解决一个难题时，他们
终究转而去研究为什么“不能”的问题。他们然后反过来看问题：“本来嘛，这才是问
题所在。” 于是，就有了一个重要的结果。所以，理想的工作条件非常奇特—-你想要
的往往不是对你来说最好的。

现在来谈谈驱动力的问题。你观察到大多数伟大的科学家都有惊人的动力。我和John
Tukey (1973年获得美国国家科学奖。在数学和统计学理论方面进行了深入的研究，并
为统计学在物理学、社会科学和工程学方面的应用做出了突出贡献。译者注) 一起工作
了10年，他一直动力十足。大约我加入三、四年后的一天，我突然发现John Tukey比我
还稍年轻一些。John是个天才，我显然不是。我于是冲进Bode的办公室，对他说：“像
我这“把”年纪的人如何能和John Tukey了解得一样多？” 他向后靠在椅子上，把手
放到脑后，咧嘴笑道：“如果你知道这些年像他一样努力的话你就能了解多少，你会大
吃一惊的。” 我无地自容般地逃出了他的办公室。

Bode实际上是这意思：知识和创造的成果就像利滚利(compound interest)。假设两个
人拥有几乎一样的能力，其中一个人比另一个人多干十分之一的活，他将多产两倍。你
知道得越多，就学得越多；你学得越多，就做得越多；你做得越多，机会就越多。这特
别像“复利”。我不会给你一个“利率”，但是那是非常高的利率。假设两个人的能力
一模一样，其中一个人设法日复一日每天都思考一个小时，那么他的一生的“产能”将
是大大的提高。我把Bode的话记在心里。这些年我花了相当的功夫试着再努力一些，结
果我发现，实际上我能做更多的工作。我本不愿在我太太面前说，但我得承认，我有时
忽视了她。我得钻研。如果你一心想做成某件事，有时你不得不对另一些事视而不见。
对此毫无疑问。

有关动力，爱迪生说：“天才是99%的汗水加1%的灵感。” 这也许有点夸张，意思却是
说，扎实的工作，长此以往，会给你带来意想不到的工作。干成大事非的下功夫不可，
而费脑力功夫使得“活”难上加难。这就是症结，使错了劲，你便一事无成。我常思量
我那么多在贝尔实验室的朋友们，工作努力的程度与我相比有过之无不及，为什么他们
难成正果(didn’t have so much to show for it)？有劲瞎使是个很严重的问题。玩
命工作是不够的—-好钢要用到刀刃上(it must be applied sendibly)。

我还得说说另一个性格方面的特点，那就是“似是而非”。我可是花了好一阵子才搞明
白其重要性的。大多数人愿意相信世上万物非此即彼，“是”“非”分明。大科学家们
却能很大程度地容忍“似是而非”。他们充分相信（自己的）预测，靠思想前行；他们
保持足够的警觉，随时挑出其中的错误和瑕疵，以便超越旧有理论，去创造新的替代的
学说。如果你过于相信，你将无暇留神其中的破绽；如果你过分怀疑，你甚至将无从起
步。这需要一个良好的平衡。多数大科学家非常清楚为什么他们的理论是真知灼见，同
时也知道哪里还有些小毛病，不敢忘怀。达尔文在他的自传里记载了他发现的每一处与
他的信条相抵触的迹象，非如此，那些“证据”就会从他脑海里消失。每当你发现明显
的毛病，你最好保持敏感并跟踪那些东西，紧紧盯住看看你能否解释或者调整你的理论
去适应（这些“毛病”）。大成就大多如此。所谓大成就并不是指那些靠多加一位小数
点搞成的东西，而是指那些投入感情的的事情。大多数大科学家们完全将他们自己融入
课题之中，而不能完全投入的人鲜有做出杰出的、一流的成果的。

再者，感情投入还不够，这显然是一个必要条件。我能告诉你其中的理由。每一个研究
了创造力的人都会认为“创造力从你的潜意识而来”。不知怎的，突然之间，灵光乍现
（there it is!），说来就来。当然，我们对潜意识知之甚少。但是你非常清楚的是，
你的梦也来自你的潜意识。并且你也意识到，在相当程度上你的梦是你白天的再现。如
果你深深地痴迷并投入到一个问题中去，日复一日，你的潜意识除了除了干这活也不会
干别的。然后，你在某个早晨，或某个下午（哈…,译者注）一觉醒来：有啦！(and
there’s the answer.) 对于那些个不能投入到当前的事情上的人来说，他们的潜意识
此时不知在哪儿磨蹭呢，凭何指望有什么好结果？所以，做事情的法子就是：如果你找
到一件真正重要的事情，你就不要让任何别的事情成为你注意力的中心—-你思你所思(
you keep your thoughts on the problem)。保持你饥饿的潜意识使它想你所想，然后
你就可以安心地睡觉，静等天明，答案便不取自来。

现在聊聊Alan Chynoweth(演讲当天的主持人，好像是光纤通信大牛，译者注)提到我老
是和搞物理的那帮人一起吃饭。我在此之前是和搞数学的人一块吃饭的，但我发现我已
经了解了不少数学的东西，所以，事实上我所学甚少。物理学的饭桌那边，如他所说，
的确是有点让人兴奋。但我认为他对我的贡献有点夸大其词了。听 Shockley (1956年
诺贝尔物理学奖获得者)、Brattain (1956年诺贝尔物理学奖获得者)、Bardeen (1965
、1972年两度物理学奖获得者)、J.B.Johnson (物理学家，噪声方面专家，发现热燥声
，Johnson noice)、Ken Mckay (没找到背景的反正均为大牛科学家。译者注)还有其他
人聊，我兴趣盎然，收获颇丰。但是可惜的是，诺贝尔奖、提升接踵而至，剩下我们这
些“沉渣”而已。没人想要这些残渣剩饭，因此，和他们吃饭何益？

挨着物理学的饭桌的是化学那帮人的饭桌。我曾和其中一个家伙一起干过，Dave
McCall，那时他正和我们的秘书眉来眼去的呢。我走过去对他说：“我能加入你们吗？
” 他们还能说不吗。所以我就和他们那帮人吃了一阵子饭。我开始发问了：“什么是
你们哪个领域的重要的事呢？” 一个多星期以后，另一个问题：“你们正在搞什么重
要的课题呢？” 有过了一段时间后：“如果你们干的事情不那么重要，如果你们不认
为那将导致重大的结果，那你们还在贝尔实验室搞它干嘛呢？” 我于是从此不再受欢
迎。我得再找别的人去吃饭了了！那还是在春天。

到了秋天，Dave McCall在饭厅堵住我对我说：“Hamming，你的话一直让我记着。我想
了一个夏天，比如，什么是我的领域里重要的问题。我并没有改变我的研究，但是，这
思考是值得的。” 我然后说：“谢谢你，Dave。”转身走了。我注意到几个月以后他
成了他们部门的头，我注意到有一天他成了国家工程院的院士(member)。我注意到他成
功了。我可没听说过他们那个饭桌上的还有其他人在科学和圈子里被提起过。他们没能
问自己：什么是我这个领域里的重要问题？

如果你不去搞那些重大的问题，你就没法干那些重要的活。十分显而易见，大科学家细
细地从头到尾考虑过在他们那个领域里的诸多重要难题，并且随时留神考虑如何攻克那
些难题。我得提醒你，说“重要/大问题”得留神。在一定的意义上，当我在贝尔尔实
验室的时候，那三个在物理方面的突出难题，从未被好好研究过。所说重要，是指可以
获得诺贝尔奖以及你能谈及的任何金钱的程度。我们未曾搞过(1)时间旅行；（2）遥距
传递(teleportation)；（3）反引力(antigravity)。他们不重要，是因为我们没法对
付他们。一个问题，不是仅仅因为解决以后能带来什么后果而重要，你必须有办法对付
她才行(It’s not the consequence that makes a problem important, it is that
you have reasonable attack)。当我说多数科学家没有做那些重要的工作，我是指这
个意思。

我前面说到过“星星之火，可以燎原(planting acorns so that oaks will grow)”之
类。又不可能总能清楚结果在哪，但你却能在那些可能“有戏”的地方充满活力。甚至
即使你相信大的科学就是一些运气什么的，你仍要站到电闪雷鸣的山顶, 而不必藏在你
感觉安全的峡谷。话虽如此，众多科学工作者毕生仍只例行公事般地从事“安全”的工
作，所以他/她“产出”有限。就这么简单：如果你要干大事，你必须毫不迟疑地(
clearly)去干重大难题，而且你得有个想法。

顺着John Tukey和其他人主张的思路，我最终采用了我称作“重大思考时间”“制度”
。当我周五去吃午饭，我此后只会讨论重大思考。所谓重大思考，我是指那些诸如 “
计算机对整个AT&T会成为什么角色”，“计算机怎样改变科学界”的问题。举个例子，
我那时注意到十分之九的实验是在实验室做的，但只有十分之一是在计算机上做的。我
有次专门跟一个副总裁谈了我的看法：事情得反过来。比如十分之九的的试验应该在计
算机上做，剩下十分之一留给实验室。他们早知道我是数学狂缺乏现实观。我知道他们
错了，并且随着越来越证明我对，他们自然就越来越错了。他们在不需要的时候建起了
各种实验室。我发现计算机正改变着自然科学，因为我花了很多时间问自己： “计算
机会给科学什么影响，我能怎样改变（影响）？” 我再问：“这如何影响贝尔实验室
呢？” 我有一次发表高见，用同样的方式，指出一半以上的贝尔试验的人在我离开之
前将会离不开计算机或相关。现在你们已经看到结局了。我发奋思考：我的领域向何处
去，机会在哪里，什么是重要的事情值得做。让我继续下去，就会有机会做点大事。

多数大科学家牢记很多重大问题。他们约有一二十个大问题想方设法去攻克。每当他们
发现一个新想法出现的时候，你就会听到他们说：“唔，这个与该问题有关。” 他们
于是抛开其他一切，全攻此问题。现在我要说一个可怕的故事，我听来的，不担保其真
实性。我当时坐在机场候机厅正和一个在Los Alamos的朋友谈论关于在当时欧洲发生的
裂变实验多幸运，因为这使得我们在美国这儿能搞原子弹。他说：“不。在伯克利(
Berkeley)我们已经收集的不少的数据。我们之所以没能推导出来，是因为我们正在建
造更多的机器设备，如果我们推导出来那些数据的话，我们就能发现裂变。” 他们让
到手的鸭子飞了。机会稍纵即逝！

伟大的科学家们，一旦机会来临，他们便紧追其后并且决不言弃。他们放下其他一切。
他们摆脱掉其他事情，紧追一个想法不放手，因为他们已经有了通盘的考虑。他们的思
想是时刻准备着的，看见机会就紧跟其后。当然，很多时候也不能奏效，但是你并不需
要如此“安打”多次就能做一些大的科学。就这么简单。一个主要的诀窍就是活得长一
点。

另一个性格特点，我一开始并没注意到。我注意到以下这些事实：有人“闭门造车”，
有人“开门迎客” (people who work with the door open or the door close)。我
观察到，如果你把办公室的门关起来，你今儿或明儿就能多干点，你也会比别人多出不
少的活。但是，10年以后就未必了。你不知道干了点什么值得干的事儿。那些把门敞开
的人的确是受了很多的打扰，但他也不时地获得些线索，了解这世界是什么或什么更重
要。好了，我是无法证明何为因何为果，因为你会说：“关门造车”意味着“封闭心灵
。” 我可不知道。只是我可以说，那些敞开了门干活的人和最终成就了大事的人之间
，存在千丝万缕的联系，即使你关上门多使劲地干也无济于事。反而，他们看起来干得
有点不对劲—-也不是太不对劲，但足以不成气候。

我想谈谈另一个话题，那是从大家都知道的歌词里来：“你做什么无关紧要，你怎样做
才紧要。” 我从自己的一个例子说起。当年正值关注二进制的日子里，我着迷似的搞
着数字电脑(digital computer)，其中一个问题最好的模拟计算机也无能为力。后来我
得到了一个结果。我仔细考量了之后对自己说：“嗨，Hamming，你知道你得就这个军
事方面的活向上打个报告。你花了那么多的钱可得能说明问题在哪啊，每一个主张模拟
装置的人都等着看你的报告以便挑你的毛病。” 老实说，我是用对付一个相当“土”
的方法去算那些积分的，但我居然也得到了答案。我终于明白了事实上这问题不在于就
是找到了答案，关键在于首先证明了它，在此之上，我能用一个数字电脑战胜“模拟电
脑”，而且在它自己的领域。我然后修改了那个解决方案的法子，创立了一个相当一流
的理论。那个公布出来的报告就有一个后来好多年以后公认的“Hamming’s method
Integrating Differential Equiations（“哈明XXXX法”，哈哈，谁愿意怎么翻就怎
么翻吧。译者注）这个现在说起来可能有点陈康烂谷子了，但是当时可火了一阵子。就
是稍微改变了问题本身，我创立了一个好的、漂亮的理论。

同理，当早年在顶楼用机器（再次提及的“机器”均指计算机。那个年代，计算机不是
我们看到的样子。译者注）的时候，我在攻克一个又一个难题，成功的居多失败的少。
周五弄完了一个问题回到家里，却奇怪我并不快活—-我很沮丧。我看到生活就是一个
问题接着一个问题又接着另一个问题。想了相当长一阵子后，我决定：不，我得对各种
“产品”进行“批量生产”，我得考虑所有“下一步的问题”，而不是仅仅眼前的问题
。通过改变提问，我仍得到了同样甚至更好的结果。我去着手主要问题：我如何才能在
我不知问题是什么的时候攻克机器（计算机。译者注）并做些“未来的问题”？我要如
何为此做准备？我要怎样做才能站到计算机之巅？我要如何遵从牛顿的法则？他说：“
如果我能比别人看得远，那是因为我站在巨人的肩旁上。” 而现如今，我们（仅）站
在相互的脚面上！

你应该以这样的方式去干你的活：你的工作成为别人工作的基石！于是别人就会说：“
看哪，我站在他的肩膀之上，我看得更远了。” 科学的本质是积累！通过稍微改变一
下问题，你就能常常作出非常好的的活，而不是一般好的活。我再也不去做相互孤立的
问题，除非它能代表某一类问题的共性。我决不再去 解决单一的问题。

现在，如果你是个不错的数学家，你会明白，可扩展性意味着解很简单(显然我不是。
谢谢ingot的更正。译者注）那是他要的问题，但是这是问题如此这般的特征。对啊，
我能用高明得多的方法攻克整个这一类难题，因为我尚未被那些细节所困扰。” 抽象
化的方法通常能够简化问题。更者，我丢掉(file away)细枝末节，只准备将来的问题。

为了结束这部分，我要提醒你：“好工匠不怨家伙式—-一个有用之才与其工作的问题
相处融洽，无论他得到什么，并且尽力而为争取最好的解决结果。” 我还要建议，通
过改变问题，通过从不同的角度看事物，在你的最终成果中，你总能成就相当程度的不
同寻常，因为，你要不然能以此方式做事—-让人们确实在你的成果的基础上有所建树
；要不然只能以彼方法干活—-下一个人不得不把你干的活从头再来复制一遍。这不是
仅仅一个作业的方法，这是你写报告的方法，你写论文的方法，以及整个态度。做更广
泛的、一般的工作就像做一个个案一样容易，并且会更加有惊人满意的结果和有价值！

我现在得来聊聊一个非常讨厌的话题—-你做完一件事情还不够，你还得把它“贩卖”
出去。对于一个科学家而言，推销是一件棘手的事。这非常讨厌，你本不该做这事，这
世界就该等着，当你做成某件大事时，他们就该赶快出来主动迎接。但是，事与愿违的
是每个人都很忙着他们自己的活。你必须很好地主动介绍，使得他们能把手头的活放在
一边，过来瞧瞧你的东西，理解它，然后回过头来说：“是，那玩意不错。” 我建议
当你打开一本刊物，翻页的时候，你问问为什么你读其中一些文章，不读另外一些。你
最好在写报告的时候也想想：当它发表在《物理评论》或其它什么刊物上的时候，别让
读者们把你的文章翻过去，而是停下来读一读你的文章。如果他们不停下来读它，你就
会竹篮打水一场空(you won’t get credit)。

一共有三件事你得去推销。你得学会写好写清楚以便人们愿意看；你必须学会发表相当
正式的发言；你还必须学会作出非正式的谈话。我们有不少所谓的“后排科学家”。在
一个会议上，他们更愿意闭口不谈。三星期后，决定也做完了，然后他们提交了一份报
告，说了一通为什么你该如此这般一番。哎，太晚了。他们不愿站在一个炙手可热的会
议的中央，在大庭广众之下说：“我们应该做这件事，为了这些原因…” 你必须掌控
这种形式的交流以及准备发表演说。

当我刚开始做演讲的时候，我几乎是一种生理上的病态，我非常非常紧张。我意识到或
者我得学习作演讲，或者我的整个职业生涯就得缺一条腿。头一次在纽约IBM要我做一
个演讲，我决定要做一个非常好的演讲，一个真正符合听众需要的演讲，不是一个专业
上的，而是更广泛的；一个如听众喜欢，我可以在演讲结束时轻轻地说 “只要你们想
听，我任何时候愿意效劳”的演讲。其结果，我通过给有限的听众做演讲获得了大量的
锻炼。最终我战胜了害怕，而且，我也能学到什么方法有效，什么方法没效。

通过参加会议我搞清楚了为什么有的论文能够被记住而有的却不能。专业人员就愿谈论
非常限定的专业问题，但大多数情况下听众只想要一个宽泛的发言，并且希望发言者介
绍更多的综述和背景介绍。其结果是，很多发言毫无效果而言。发言者说了个题目，然
后一猛子扎进了他解决的细节中去，听众席上的极少人能够跟进。你应当勾勒一个大致
的图画去说明为什么重要，然后慢慢地给出纲要，说明做了什么。那样更多的人就会说
：“对，乔做了这个或马莉做了那个。我知道了怎么回事。是呀，马莉讲得不错，我明
白了马莉做了什么。” 我们的倾向是做一个高度限定的、安全的发言。但那往往是没
有成效的。而且，太多的发言充斥了太多的信息。所以我说“推销”的方法显而易见。

让我总结一下。你得去干那些重要的问题。我反对全部是运气，但是我承认是有不少运
气的成分。我赞成巴斯德的“运气光顾有准备之士”的说法。我极力主张 我过去所为
，如多年以来坚持的星期五下午“大想法时间”，只有大想法——意味着我投入了10%
的时间试图去搞懂本领域更大的问题，比如什么重要和什么不重要。我早些时候发现我
相信“此”却一整周时间都奔着“彼”方向忙乎。这的确有点滑稽。如果我真正相信作
“这儿”有戏，为什么我往“那”去？我要不就的改变我的目标，要不就的调整行动。
所以，我改变我做的事并且向认为重要的方向迈进。就这么简单。

现在你也许要告诉我，你还未有足够的资历去支配你所有的事。当然，当你刚开始的时
候是有点难。但一旦你获得了适当的成功，就会有更多的人前来要求结果，比你能提供
的要多的时候，你就有了一些选择的权力了，但不是全部。我来告诉你相关的一个故事
，这还与“开导”你的老板的主题有关。我有一个老板，叫 Schelkunff，它过去和现
在都是我的好朋友。有军队的人来求助我，要求周五出答案。嗯，我已经决定把我的计
算机资源为一组科学家所用，用于精炼数据。我正沉浸于短的、小的、重要的问题。这
个军队的人却要我在周五提交结果。我说： “不行。我会在星期一给你结果。” 他就
跑到我的老板Schelkunoff那里。Schelkunoff说：“你必须给他干这活。他必须周五要
结果。” 我问他：“为什么我也得如此呢？” 他说：“你必须！” 我说：“行。
Sergei，但是你得坐在你的办公室一直到周五最后一班班车，盯着那伙计，看着他走出
门去。” 我在周五下午很晚拿出了结果，给了那军队的人。我然后走到Schelkunoff的
办公室坐下。当那人出门的时候，我说：“你看， Schelkunoff，这伙计手里什么也没
拿。我可是把结果给他了啊。” 星期一一早Schelkunoff把他叫来，对他说：“你周末
过来干活了吗？” 我能听到好像磨磨唧唧的，那伙计试图搞清楚到底怎么发生了什么
。他知道他本该周末到，没有最好别说有。所以他说他没来。从那以后 Schelkunoff总
说：“你尽管设定你自己的期限，让他们侯着。”

一次教训就足以开导我的老板明白为什么我不愿把探索性的研究放在一边儿去搞什么华
而不实的事，为什么我不去做那些抢占所有设施的没劲的事是对的。我宁肯用这些设备
去为一个小事进行大运算。再说一遍，早年我的“运算”能力受到限制，因为在我的领
域里，“数学家对机器无用处”的结论显而易见。每次我都得告诉其他领域里的科学家
们，当他们抱怨：“不行，我算不出，我没有计算资源。” 我跟他们说：“去告诉你
们的副总裁：Hamming需要更多的计算资源。” 一段时间以后我就看出了效果，好多人
跟我的副总裁说：“你手下的那个人需要更多的计算资源。” 我得到了！

我还干了一件事。当在计算领域早些时候我产生了(loaned)一点编程的能力时，我说：
“我们没有给与我们的程序员足够的认可。当你发表一篇论文时，你应该谢谢程序员，
否则你就别再从我这指望更多的帮助了。程序员应该被个别地致谢，因为他们付出了努
力。” 我等了好多年，然后我翻了翻某一年全年的BSTJ（The Bell System Technical
Journal. 译者注）文章，数数有哪些专门感谢了那些程序员。我把这拿到老板那里，
对他说：“这反映计算机在贝尔实验室的中心地位—-如果BSTJ是重要的，那么，计算
机怎么重要就一目了然了。” 他只好让步。你也能开导你的老板，这并不容易。在此
，我是自下而上的角度，而不是自上而下。但我告诉你是怎样才能得到你所需要的，不
管头头们怎么想。你得把想法“推销”给他们。

好了，我现在谈下一个话题：“努力去做一个大科学家值得吗？” 要回答这个问题，
你必须问问周围的牛人。如果你能让他们放下谦虚，他们往往会说：“是的，做真正一
流的事情，并且掌握它，就如同将美酒、美女、和美曲放到一起一样美妙（wine,
women and song是Johann Strauss（施特劳斯）一首著名的圆舞曲）。如果你再看看老
板们，他们往往都重又回来，或者提出项目要求，试图重去体验新发现的时刻。他们总
是这样。所以很显然，做过的人还想再做。但是这种体验是有限的。我从不敢出去问那
些没干过大事的人他们怎么想这个问题。这难免有失偏颇，但我还是觉得值得一试。我
想，十分肯定地值得一试那些一流的工作，因为事实是，价值体现在奋斗过程中而非结
果上。为自己的事情奋斗本身就值得。成功和名誉只是附带的孳息而已。

我已经告诉你如何做。那么既然如此容易，为什么那么多聪明人还是失败了呢？比如，
在我看来如今贝尔实验室数学部门有不少人比我有才华和能力，但他们却没能做的和我
一样多。确有一部分比我做的要多，香农(Shannon)就比我多，还有别的一些人。但我
的确比很多资质高的同事要多产。为什么这样？他们怎么啦？为什么这么多的有很好前
景的人都失败了？

其中一个原因是动力和投入。做大事的人中，能力差一点但全力投入的人，比起能力很
强但有点花里胡哨—-那些白天上班干活晚上回家干别的第二天再来干活的人，要多有
成就些。他们缺乏一流工作所需的必要的投入。他们是干出了不少得不错的事，但别忘
了，我们说的可是一流的工作。这是完全不同的。不错的人，聪明的人，总是出些不错
的活。但我们说的是非同平常的活，是可以获得诺贝尔奖和真正荣誉的活。

第二个原因我觉得是个性的缺陷。我要举一个我在Irvine（美国加州大学 Irvine分晓
。译者注）熟识的一位同事的例子。他是计算机中心的头并且那会儿是校长的特别助理
。显然他有一个光明的前途。有一次他带我到他的办公室向我介绍他处理信件的方法，
以及如何处理回信。他告诉我他的秘书如何的没有效率。他把信件一垛一垛分放好，并
且知道哪是哪。而且他会自己用打字机一一回信。他向我吹嘘有多么多么了不起，他是
如何不用秘书的帮忙就把这些事都干了。我于是背着他问他的秘书。那秘书说: “我当
然没法帮他，他根本不让我拿到他的信件。他不让我进入他的系统，我也不知道东西放
在地板的哪块。我当然没法帮他。” 然后我回去对他说：“你看，如果你用现在的方
法，单枪匹马地干，你就只能原地踏步，不会有长进了。如果你能学会利用整个系统来
工作，你就能走得更远，能走多远就多远。” 结果是他再没有什么长进了。他缺失的
个性使得他总想控制一切，而不是意识到你需要整个系统的支持。

你会发现这种情况屡见不鲜。普通的科学家会与系统为敌，而不是学会和系统相处并利
用系统所提供的帮助。系统的支持其实很多，如果你能学会如何用的话。如果你有耐心
的话，你就能学会很好地使用系统，而且，你终究会学会如何绕过它。因为，如果你需
要一个拒绝，你就到你的老板那里，轻易就能得到一个拒绝。如果你想做什么事，别去
请求，做就是了，然后交给他一个既定的事实。别给他一个拒绝你的机会。但如果你就
想要“不”，那很容易得到那个“不”。

另一个个性缺陷是自负地坚持己见。我要说说我自己的事。我刚从Los Alamos来时在纽
约麦迪逊大街590号，那时用着台计算机。我仍按西部的打扮，大斜杠口袋，一个bolo(
? 译者注)以及所有那些玩艺。我隐隐约约地注意到我好像没有得到和别的人一样的服
务。所以我开始琢磨。我来了等着轮到我，但我觉得我没得到公正的待遇。我对自己说
：“咋回事？并没有IBM哪个副总裁说过‘得跟Hamming过不去’。只是那些底下的秘书
们这样做。当一个裂缝出现的时候，他们抢着过来看看谁跌进去了，然后再去找别的人
（瞧热闹。译者注）。 可是，这是为什么？我可没得罪他们。” 答案只有一个：我没
有按照他们认为的此时此地应有的打扮穿衣着服。原来如此—-我没穿合适！我得做个
决定—-我是坚持我的自负，想穿什么就穿什么，从此耗干我职业生涯的努力；还是顺
应环境？我最后决定还是作出努力顺应环境。真是一蹴而就，我于是马上得到更好的服
务了。而现在，作为一个花里胡哨的老角色(old colorful character)，我得到比其他
人还好的服务。

你应当根据你演讲听众的期望来穿衣打扮。如果我要在麻省理工学院计算机中心做个演
讲，我就穿个有bolo和旧款灯芯绒外套或别的什么。我十分清楚别让我的衣着、外表和
举止影响我在意的事。不在少数的科学家觉得他们必须坚持他们的自我，按他们的方式
做他们的事。他们不得不着这个、那个，还有其他的事，并且为此付出相当的代价。

John Tukey几乎总是穿着随意。他走进一个重要的办公室，人们往往要花一些时间才能
证实这是一个一流的人后才能听他说。有相当一阵子John不得不对付这类的麻烦，真是
浪费功夫！我不是说你应该顺从，我说“顺从的样子给你一条畅通之道”。如果你选择
某些方面坚持自负，“我要按我的法子做这个”，你在你整个的职业是生涯中付出一定
的代价。这样，在你的一生中，累积起来就会形成巨大量的不必要的麻烦。

通过“受累”跟秘书们讲讲笑话和友好些，我从秘书那里获得了极大的帮助。例如，一
次因为一些愚蠢的原因所有在Murray Hill的复制的服务都关门了。别问我怎么回事，
他们就会这样。我有一些事必须要他们完成。我的秘书给Holmdel的人打电话，跳上公
司的车，跑了一个钟头的路把东西复印了回来。那可真是我长期努力鼓励她，给她讲笑
话，以及对她友善的很好的回报。这就是投之桃李，报之琼瑶。通过认识你必须使用系
统并研究如何让系统为你工作，你学会如何让系统为你的想法做调整。或者你可以直愣
愣地与之为敌，如同一个未经宣战的小战争，更他较一辈子劲。

我觉得John Tukey付出了相当大的不必要的代价。不管怎的，他是个天才。但我认为他
本可以更好，好很多，更简单，如果他愿意顺应一点点，而不是自负的坚持。他就是想
任何时候想怎么穿就怎么穿。则不仅仅对穿着适用，也适用于其他千万件事情。人们会
继续与系统为敌，你可以有时不这么干 (Not that you shouldn’t occasionally)!

当他们把图书馆从Murray Hill搬到远的那头时，我的一个好朋友提出要一辆自行车的
申请。哈，机构也不是傻瓜，他们过了一整子送回来一张地图，并且说：“你可以在图
上指名要走哪条路以便我们可以给你买个保险。” 过了几个星期，他们又问：“你要
把自行车放到哪里以及你准备怎么锁它以便我们如此这般。” 他终于明白了他终究会
被官样文章逼死，于是他举手投降。他后来升至贝尔实验室总裁。

Barney Oliver（天文学家,以SETI外星球智能探索研究著称。前HP实验室负责人。译者
注） 是个好人。有一次他给IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics
Engineers 美国电气及电子工程师学会。译者注)写信。那会儿贝尔实验室的正式的职
位挺多，IEEE的“道”也挺深。既然你无法改变正式机构的规模，他就给IEEE出版方面
的人说：“既然有这么多IEEE会员都在贝尔实验室，并且官方机构如此之大，所以杂志
的规模也得改变。” 他去争取他老板的签字，回来的还是他自己签字的那份的复印件
，但他还是没搞清他的那份原件到底送出没有。我不是说你不该持改革的姿态，我是说
我所了解的能人总是避免让自己惹上冲突的麻烦。他们游戏其中，然后丢开，投入到工
作中。

许多二流的伙计常被系统逮着戏弄一番，然后带入纷争。他把他的精力花费在愚蠢的“
项目”上。那么，你会告诉我总有人得去改变系统。我同意，的确得有人去干。你愿意
去干哪样呢：一个是去改变系统，另一个是去做一流的事？到底哪一个角色是你想要的
？必须十分清楚，当你与系统抗争的时候，你在干什么？多久这“笑话”能完？得费你
多少功夫与之斗争？我的忠告是让别的什么人去干，你还是去成为一流科学家算了。你
们中几乎没有人有能力既能改良系统又能成为一流的科学家。

另一方面，我们不能老是屈服。时常有相当数量的反抗是合理的。我注意到几乎所有科
学家凭着单纯的感觉喜欢嘲弄一下系统。基本上来说，你在其他领域没有创新你也无法
在本领域获得原创力。原创力是与众不同！你如果不具备其他的创新的特质，你不可能
成为一个有创造力的科学家。但是许多科学家为了满足他/她的自我，让他在其他方面
的怪癖为他支付了不必要的高昂的代价。我不是反对所有的对自我的维护，我反对其中
某些。

另一个毛病是发怒。一个科学家经常变得狂躁，这根本无法办事。愉悦，好；生气，不
好。发怒完全不对路子。你应该顺从和合作，而不是老跟系统过不去。

另一方面你应该看到一个事情的积极的一面，而不是消极的一面。我已经给了你好些例
子，还有更多。我在某种情况下，通过改变对事情的看法，是如何将一个明显的缺点转
化成优点的呢？我给你讲另一个例子。我是个任性的人，对此不用怀疑。我知道多数在
休假期间写书的人不能按时完工。所以，我离开之前我就会告诉所有的朋友，当我（休
假 -译者注）回来的时候我的书就会完工。是的，我就要它完工 —- 如果我没能写完
它，我得为之感到羞愧！我用我的自负去帮助实现我想达到的举止。我夸下海口于是我
不得不去实现。我很多次发现，就像耗子急了了也咬人(a cornered rat in a real
trap)，我不可思议地能力非凡。我认为完全值得一说：“好啊，我会在星期二把答案
给你。” 即使还不知道怎样去做。星期天的晚上我还在想如何才能在星期二交差。我
常常把我的自尊悬于一线，当然有时仍不成功。但是如我所说，如同逼急了的老鼠，我
常出人意料地干出很多出色的活。我觉得你需要学会利用自己，我觉得你应知道如何将
一个局面从一个角度转换到另一个角度，以提高成功的机会。

对自我的错觉对于人类是非常非常平常的事。数不胜数的可能性是：你改变了一件事然
后骗你自己让它看起来像别的样子。当你问：“为什么你没这样这样做？” 那个被问
的人有一千个托辞。如果你看看科学史，通常是有10个人都差不多了，但是我们只注意
到那个首先做出来的人，那剩下的9个人说：“哎，我想到了，但是我就是没这么做。
如此这般。” 有太多的借口。为什么你不是那第一个？为什么你没能做好？别去辩解
，别试图愚弄自己。你想跟给别人说什么借口就说什么吧，我不在乎。就是对自己要诚
实。

如果你确实想成为一名一流的科学家，你得了解你自己，你的弱点，你的强项，以及你
的坏毛病，比如我的自尊自大。怎样才能将一个缺点转化成一个优点？怎样才能将弹尽
粮绝的境遇转化成你需要的情形？我再说一次，如我所见，据我研究历史，成功的科学
家改变视角，一个瑕疵也能变成了一块美玉(what was a defect became an asset)。

简而言之，我认为那些本已胜券在握的科学家最后未能成功的原因是：他们没做重要的
问题；他们没能投入感情；他们不去试着把困难的事情转化成一些容易解决，但却仍然
重要的问题。还有，他们老是给自己各种借口解释为什么没做成。他们老是归结为运气
使然。我已经告诉你事情有多容易，更者我已经告诉你如何去改进。所以，动手吧，你
们就会成为伟大的科学家。


--
我们是一群被称为80后的“孩子”。我们已经渐渐成长，并步入了人生中最重要的十年
。如今，都主动或被动的站在了人生的舞台上，开始了各自的角色扮演。背负着梦想的
我们还能在布满荆棘的路上走多远？是渐渐地被这个混沌的社会同化了，还是依然倔强
骄傲的活着。我们是80后的一代，善良着，颓废着、脆弱着、勇敢着、坚强着、微笑着



※ 来源:·BBS 未名空间站 海外: mitbbs.com 中国: mitbbs.cn·[FROM: 130.127.]



发信人: magon (跑龙套的科学工作者: 三十而惑), 信区: Macromolecules
标 题: Re: YOU AND YOUR RESEARCH [zz]
发信站: BBS 未名空间站 (Fri May 4 15:47:08 2007)

的确是好文,说的很实在.
把原文找出来了,大家可以一并看看.
总结一下:
运气是要靠努力地,
问题是要敢问大的,
科学家要不断完善自身地.

【 在 DigitalPig (North! | 想做Polymer Physics) 的大作中提到: 】
: 金玉良言-- YOU AND YOUR RESEARCH
:


Richard Hamming
``You and Your Research''

Transcription of the
Bell Communications Research Colloquium Seminar
7 March 1986

J. F. Kaiser
Bell Communications Research
445 South Street
Morristown, NJ 07962-1910
jfk@bellcore.com

At a seminar in the Bell Communications Research Colloquia Series, Dr.
Richard W. Hamming, a Professor at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey
, California and a retired Bell Labs scientist, gave a very interesting and
stimulating talk, `You and Your Research' to an overflow audience of some
200 Bellcore staff members and visitors at the Morris Research and
Engineering Center on March 7, 1986. 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.

In order to make the information in the talk more widely available, the tape
recording that was made of that talk was carefully transcribed. This
transcription includes the discussions which followed in the question and
answer period. As with any talk, the transcribed version suffers from
translation as all the inflections of voice and the gestures of the speaker
are lost; one must listen to the tape recording to recapture that part of
the presentation. While the recording of Richard Hamming's talk was
completely intelligible, that of some of the questioner's remarks were not.
Where the tape recording was not intelligible I have added in parentheses my
impression of the questioner's remarks. Where there was a question and I
could identify the questioner, I have checked with each to ensure the
accuracy of my interpretation of their remarks.

INTRODUCTION OF DR. RICHARD W. HAMMING

As a speaker in the Bell Communications Research Colloquium Series, Dr.
Richard W. Hamming of the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California,
was introduced by Alan G. Chynoweth, Vice President, Applied Research, Bell
Communications Research.

Alan G. Chynoweth: Greetings colleagues, and also to many of our former
colleagues from Bell Labs who, I understand, are here to be with us today on
what I regard as a particularly felicitous occasion. It gives me very great
pleasure indeed to introduce to you my old friend and colleague from many
many years back, Richard Hamming, or Dick Hamming as he has always been know
to all of us.

Dick is one of the all time greats in the mathematics and computer science
arenas, as I'm sure the audience here does not need reminding. He received
his early education at the Universities of Chicago and Nebraska, and got his
Ph.D. at Illinois; he then joined the Los Alamos project during the war.
Afterwards, in 1946, he joined Bell Labs. And that is, of course, where I
met Dick - when I joined Bell Labs in their physics research organization.
In those days, we were in the habit of lunching together as a physics group,
and for some reason this strange fellow from mathematics was always pleased
to join us. We were always happy to have him with us because he brought so
many unorthodox ideas and views. Those lunches were stimulating, I can
assure you.

While our professional paths have not been very close over the years,
nevertheless I've always recognized Dick in the halls of Bell Labs and have
always had tremendous admiration for what he was doing. I think the record
speaks for itself. It is too long to go through all the details, but let me
point out, for example, that he has written seven books and of those seven
books which tell of various areas of mathematics and computers and coding
and information theory, three are already well into their second edition.
That is testimony indeed to the prolific output and the stature of Dick
Hamming.

I think I last met him - it must have been about ten years ago - at a rather
curious little conference in Dublin, Ireland where we were both speakers.
As always, he was tremendously entertaining. Just one more example of the
provocative thoughts that he comes up with: I remember him saying, ``There
are wavelengths that people cannot see, there are sounds that people cannot
hear, and maybe computers have thoughts that people cannot think.'' Well,
with Dick Hamming around, we don't need a computer. I think that we are in
for an extremely entertaining talk.

THE TALK: ``You and Your Research'' by Dr. Richard W. Hamming

It's a pleasure to be here. I doubt if I can live up to the Introduction.
The title of my talk is, ``You and Your Research.'' It is not about managing
research, it is about how you individually do your research. I could give a
talk on the other subject - but it's not, it's about you. I'm not talking
about ordinary run-of-the-mill research; I'm talking about great research.
And for the sake of describing great research I'll occasionally say Nobel-
Prize type of work. It doesn't have to gain the Nobel Prize, but I mean
those kinds of things which we perceive are significant things. Relativity,
if you want, Shannon's information theory, any number of outstanding
theories - that's the kind of thing I'm talking about.

Now, how did I come to do this study? At Los Alamos I was brought in to run
the computing machines which other people had got going, so those scientists
and physicists could get back to business. I saw I was a stooge. I saw that
although physically I was the same, they were different. And to put the
thing bluntly, I was envious. I wanted to know why they were so different
from me. I saw Feynman up close. I saw Fermi and Teller. I saw Oppenheimer.
I saw Hans Bethe: he was my boss. I saw quite a few very capable people. I
became very interested in the difference between those who do and those who
might have done.

When I came to Bell Labs, I came into a very productive department. Bode was
the department head at the time; Shannon was there, and there were other
people. I continued examining the questions, ``Why?'' and ``What is the
difference?'' I continued subsequently by reading biographies,
autobiographies, asking people questions such as: ``How did you come to do
this?'' I tried to find out what are the differences. And that's what this
talk is about.

Now, why is this talk important? I think it is important because, as far as
I know, each of you has one life to live. Even if you believe in
reincarnation it doesn't do you any good from one life to the next! Why
shouldn't you do significant things in this one life, however you define
significant? I'm not going to define it - you know what I mean. I will talk
mainly about science because that is what I have studied. But so far as I
know, and I've been told by others, much of what I say applies to many
fields. Outstanding work is characterized very much the same way in most
fields, but I will confine myself to science.

In order to get at you individually, I must talk in the first person. I have
to get you to drop modesty and say to yourself, ``Yes, I would like to do
first-class work.'' Our society frowns on people who set out to do really
good work. You're not supposed to; luck is supposed to descend on you and
you do great things by chance. Well, that's a kind of dumb thing to say. I
say, why shouldn't you set out to do something significant. You don't have
to tell other people, but shouldn't you say to yourself, ``Yes, I would like
to do something significant.''

In order to get to the second stage, I have to drop modesty and talk in the
first person about what I've seen, what I've done, and what I've heard. I'm
going to talk about people, some of whom you know, and I trust that when we
leave, you won't quote me as saying some of the things I said.

Let me start not logically, but psychologically. I find that the major
objection is that people think great science is done by luck. It's all a
matter of luck. Well, consider Einstein. Note how many different things he
did that were good. Was it all luck? Wasn't it a little too repetitive?
Consider Shannon. He didn't do just information theory. Several years before
, he did some other good things and some which are still locked up in the
security of cryptography. He did many good things.

You see again and again, that it is more than one thing from a good person.
Once in a while a person does only one thing in his whole life, and we'll
talk about that later, but a lot of times there is repetition. I claim that
luck will not cover everything. And I will cite Pasteur who said, ``Luck
favors the prepared mind.'' And I think that says it the way I believe it.
There is indeed an element of luck, and no, there isn't. The prepared mind
sooner or later finds something important and does it. So yes, it is luck.
The particular thing you do is luck, but that you do something is not.

For example, when I came to Bell Labs, I shared an office for a while with
Shannon. At the same time he was doing information theory, I was doing
coding theory. It is suspicious that the two of us did it at the same place
and at the same time - it was in the atmosphere. And you can say, ``Yes, it
was luck.'' On the other hand you can say, ``But why of all the people in
Bell Labs then were those the two who did it?'' Yes, it is partly luck, and
partly it is the prepared mind; but `partly' is the other thing I'm going to
talk about. So, although I'll come back several more times to luck, I want
to dispose of this matter of luck as being the sole criterion whether you do
great work or not. I claim you have some, but not total, control over it.
And I will quote, finally, Newton on the matter. Newton said, ``If others
would think as hard as I did, then they would get similar results.''

One of the characteristics you see, and many people have it including great
scientists, is that usually when they were young they had independent
thoughts and had the courage to pursue them. For example, Einstein,
somewhere around 12 or 14, asked himself the question, ``What would a light
wave look like if I went with the velocity of light to look at it?'' Now he
knew that electromagnetic theory says you cannot have a stationary local
maximum. But if he moved along with the velocity of light, he would see a
local maximum. He could see a contradiction at the age of 12, 14, or
somewhere around there, that everything was not right and that the velocity
of light had something peculiar. Is it luck that he finally created special
relativity? Early on, he had laid down some of the pieces by thinking of the
fragments. Now that's the necessary but not sufficient condition. All of
these items I will talk about are both luck and not luck.

How about having lots of `brains?' It sounds good. Most of you in this room
probably have more than enough brains to do first-class work. But great work
is something else than mere brains. Brains are measured in various ways. In
mathematics, theoretical physics, astrophysics, typically brains correlates
to a great extent with the ability to manipulate symbols. And so the
typical IQ test is apt to score them fairly high. On the other hand, in
other fields it is something different. For example, Bill Pfann, the fellow
who did zone melting, came into my office one day. He had this idea dimly in
his mind about what he wanted and he had some equations. It was pretty
clear to me that this man didn't know much mathematics and he wasn't really
articulate. His problem seemed interesting so I took it home and did a
little work. I finally showed him how to run computers so he could compute
his own answers. I gave him the power to compute. He went ahead, with
negligible recognition from his own department, but ultimately he has
collected all the prizes in the field. Once he got well started, his shyness
, his awkwardness, his inarticulateness, fell away and he became much more
productive in many other ways. Certainly he became much more articulate.

And I can cite another person in the same way. I trust he isn't in the
audience, i.e. a fellow named Clogston. I met him when I was working on a
problem with John Pierce's group and I didn't think he had much. I asked my
friends who had been with him at school, ``Was he like that in graduate
school?'' ``Yes,'' they replied. Well I would have fired the fellow, but J.
R. Pierce was smart and kept him on. Clogston finally did the Clogston cable
. After that there was a steady stream of good ideas. One success brought
him confidence and courage.

One of the characteristics of successful scientists is having courage. Once
you get your courage up and believe that you can do important problems, then
you can. If you think you can't, almost surely you are not going to.
Courage is one of the things that Shannon had supremely. You have only to
think of his major theorem. He wants to create a method of coding, but he
doesn't know what to do so he makes a random code. Then he is stuck. And
then he asks the impossible question, ``What would the average random code
do?'' He then proves that the average code is arbitrarily good, and that
therefore there must be at least one good code. Who but a man of infinite
courage could have dared to think those thoughts? That is the characteristic
of great scientists; they have courage. They will go forward under
incredible circumstances; they think and continue to think.

Age is another factor which the physicists particularly worry about. They
always are saying that you have got to do it when you are young or you will
never do it. Einstein did things very early, and all the quantum mechanic
fellows were disgustingly young when they did their best work. Most
mathematicians, theoretical physicists, and astrophysicists do what we
consider their best work when they are young. It is not that they don't do
good work in their old age but what we value most is often what they did
early. On the other hand, in music, politics and literature, often what we
consider their best work was done late. I don't know how whatever field you
are in fits this scale, but age has some effect.

But let me say why age seems to have the effect it does. In the first place
if you do some good work you will find yourself on all kinds of committees
and unable to do any more work. You may find yourself as I saw Brattain when
he got a Nobel Prize. The day the prize was announced we all assembled in
Arnold Auditorium; all three winners got up and made speeches. The third one
, Brattain, practically with tears in his eyes, said, ``I know about this
Nobel-Prize effect and I am not going to let it affect me; I am going to
remain good old Walter Brattain.'' Well I said to myself, ``That is nice.''
But in a few weeks I saw it was affecting him. Now he could only work on
great problems.

When you are famous it is hard to work on small problems. This is what did
Shannon in. After information theory, what do you do for an encore? The
great scientists often make this error. They fail to continue to plant the
little acorns from which the mighty oak trees grow. They try to get the big
thing right off. And that isn't the way things go. So that is another reason
why you find that when you get early recognition it seems to sterilize you.
In fact I will give you my favorite quotation of many years. The Institute
for Advanced Study in Princeton, in my opinion, has ruined more good
scientists than any institution has created, judged by what they did before
they came and judged by what they did after. Not that they weren't good
afterwards, but they were superb before they got there and were only good
afterwards.

This brings up the subject, out of order perhaps, of working conditions.
What most people think are the best working conditions, are not. Very
clearly they are not because people are often most productive when working
conditions are bad. One of the better times of the Cambridge Physical
Laboratories was when they had practically shacks - they did some of the
best physics ever.

I give you a story from my own private life. Early on it became evident to
me that Bell Laboratories was not going to give me the conventional acre of
programming people to program computing machines in absolute binary. It was
clear they weren't going to. But that was the way everybody did it. I could
go to the West Coast and get a job with the airplane companies without any
trouble, but the exciting people were at Bell Labs and the fellows out there
in the airplane companies were not. I thought for a long while about, ``Did
I want to go or not?'' and I wondered how I could get the best of two
possible worlds. I finally said to myself, ``Hamming, you think the machines
can do practically everything. Why can't you make them write programs?''
What appeared at first to me as a defect forced me into automatic
programming very early. What appears to be a fault, often, by a change of
viewpoint, turns out to be one of the greatest assets you can have. But you
are not likely to think that when you first look the thing and say, ``Gee, I
'm never going to get enough programmers, so how can I ever do any great
programming?''

And there are many other stories of the same kind; Grace Hopper has similar
ones. I think that if you look carefully you will see that often the great
scientists, by turning the problem around a bit, changed a defect to an
asset. For example, many scientists when they found they couldn't do a
problem finally began to study why not. They then turned it around the other
way and said, ``But of course, this is what it is'' and got an important
result. So ideal working conditions are very strange. The ones you want aren
't always the best ones for you.

Now for the matter of drive. You observe that most great scientists have
tremendous drive. I worked for ten years with John Tukey at Bell Labs. He
had tremendous drive. One day about three or four years after I joined, I
discovered that John Tukey was slightly younger than I was. John was a
genius and I clearly was not. Well I went storming into Bode's office and
said, ``How can anybody my age know as much as John Tukey does?'' He leaned
back in his chair, put his hands behind his head, grinned slightly, and said
, ``You would be surprised Hamming, how much you would know if you worked as
hard as he did that many years.'' I simply slunk out of the office!

What Bode was saying was this: ``Knowledge and productivity are like
compound interest.'' Given two people of approximately the same ability and
one person who works ten percent more than the other, the latter will more
than twice outproduce the former. The more you know, the more you learn; the
more you learn, the more you can do; the more you can do, the more the
opportunity - it is very much like compound interest. I don't want to give
you a rate, but it is a very high rate. Given two people with exactly the
same ability, the one person who manages day in and day out to get in one
more hour of thinking will be tremendously more productive over a lifetime.
I took Bode's remark to heart; I spent a good deal more of my time for some
years trying to work a bit harder and I found, in fact, I could get more
work done. I don't like to say it in front of my wife, but I did sort of
neglect her sometimes; I needed to study. You have to neglect things if you
intend to get what you want done. There's no question about this.

On this matter of drive Edison says, ``Genius is 99% perspiration and 1%
inspiration.'' He may have been exaggerating, but the idea is that solid
work, steadily applied, gets you surprisingly far. The steady application of
effort with a little bit more work, intelligently applied is what does it.
That's the trouble; drive, misapplied, doesn't get you anywhere. I've often
wondered why so many of my good friends at Bell Labs who worked as hard or
harder than I did, didn't have so much to show for it. The misapplication of
effort is a very serious matter. Just hard work is not enough - it must be
applied sensibly.

There's another trait on the side which I want to talk about; that trait is
ambiguity. It took me a while to discover its importance. Most people like
to believe something is or is not true. Great scientists tolerate ambiguity
very well. They believe the theory enough to go ahead; they doubt it enough
to notice the errors and faults so they can step forward and create the new
replacement theory. If you believe too much you'll never notice the flaws;
if you doubt too much you won't get started. It requires a lovely balance.
But most great scientists are well aware of why their theories are true and
they are also well aware of some slight misfits which don't quite fit and
they don't forget it. Darwin writes in his autobiography that he found it
necessary to write down every piece of evidence which appeared to contradict
his beliefs because otherwise they would disappear from his mind. When you
find apparent flaws you've got to be sensitive and keep track of those
things, and keep an eye out for how they can be explained or how the theory
can be changed to fit them. Those are often the great contributions. Great
contributions are rarely done by adding another decimal place. It comes down
to an emotional commitment. Most great scientists are completely committed
to their problem. Those who don't become committed seldom produce
outstanding, first-class work.

Now again, emotional commitment is not enough. It is a necessary condition
apparently. And I think I can tell you the reason why. Everybody who has
studied creativity is driven finally to saying, ``creativity comes out of
your subconscious.'' Somehow, suddenly, there it is. It just appears. Well,
we know very little about the subconscious; but one thing you are pretty
well aware of is that your dreams also come out of your subconscious. And
you're aware your dreams are, to a fair extent, a reworking of the
experiences of the day. If you are deeply immersed and committed to a topic,
day after day after day, your subconscious has nothing to do but work on
your problem. And so you wake up one morning, or on some afternoon, and
there's the answer. For those who don't get committed to their current
problem, the subconscious goofs off on other things and doesn't produce the
big result. So the way to manage yourself is that when you have a real
important problem you don't let anything else get the center of your
attention - you keep your thoughts on the problem. Keep your subconscious
starved so it has to work on your problem, so you can sleep peacefully and
get the answer in the morning, free.

Now Alan Chynoweth mentioned that I used to eat at the physics table. I had
been eating with the mathematicians and I found out that I already knew a
fair amount of mathematics; in fact, I wasn't learning much. The physics
table was, as he said, an exciting place, but I think he exaggerated on how
much I contributed. It was very interesting to listen to Shockley, Brattain,
Bardeen, J. B. Johnson, Ken McKay and other people, and I was learning a
lot. But unfortunately a Nobel Prize came, and a promotion came, and what
was left was the dregs. Nobody wanted what was left. Well, there was no use
eating with them!

Over on the other side of the dining hall was a chemistry table. I had
worked with one of the fellows, Dave McCall; furthermore he was courting our
secretary at the time. I went over and said, ``Do you mind if I join you?''
They can't say no, so I started eating with them for a while. And I started
asking, ``What are the important problems of your field?'' And after a week
or so, ``What important problems are you working on?'' And after some more
time I came in one day and said, ``If what you are doing is not important,
and if you don't think it is going to lead to something important, why are
you at Bell Labs working on it?'' I wasn't welcomed after that; I had to
find somebody else to eat with! That was in the spring.

In the fall, Dave McCall stopped me in the hall and said, ``Hamming, that
remark of yours got underneath my skin. I thought about it all summer, i.e.
what were the important problems in my field. I haven't changed my research,
'' he says, ``but I think it was well worthwhile.'' And I said, ``Thank you
Dave,'' and went on. I noticed a couple of months later he was made the head
of the department. I noticed the other day he was a Member of the National
Academy of Engineering. I noticed he has succeeded. I have never heard the
names of any of the other fellows at that table mentioned in science and
scientific circles. They were unable to ask themselves, ``What are the
important problems in my field?''

If you do not work on an important problem, it's unlikely you'll do
important work. It's perfectly obvious. Great scientists have thought
through, in a careful way, a number of important problems in their field,
and they keep an eye on wondering how to attack them. Let me warn you, `
important problem' must be phrased carefully. The three outstanding problems
in physics, in a certain sense, were never worked on while I was at Bell
Labs. By important I mean guaranteed a Nobel Prize and any sum of money you
want to mention. We didn't work on (1) time travel, (2) teleportation, and (
3) antigravity. They are not important problems because we do not have an
attack. It's not the consequence that makes a problem important, it is that
you have a reasonable attack. That is what makes a problem important. When I
say that most scientists don't work on important problems, I mean it in
that sense. The average scientist, so far as I can make out, spends almost
all his time working on problems which he believes will not be important and
he also doesn't believe that they will lead to important problems.

I spoke earlier about planting acorns so that oaks will grow. You can't
always know exactly where to be, but you can keep active in places where
something might happen. And even if you believe that great science is a
matter of luck, you can stand on a mountain top where lightning strikes; you
don't have to hide in the valley where you're safe. But the average
scientist does routine safe work almost all the time and so he (or she)
doesn't produce much. It's that simple. If you want to do great work, you
clearly must work on important problems, and you should have an idea.

Along those lines at some urging from John Tukey and others, I finally
adopted what I called ``Great Thoughts Time.'' When I went to lunch Friday
noon, I would only discuss great thoughts after that. By great thoughts I
mean ones like: ``What will be the role of computers in all of AT&T?'', ``
How will computers change science?'' For example, I came up with the
observation at that time that nine out of ten experiments were done in the
lab and one in ten on the computer. I made a remark to the vice presidents
one time, that it would be reversed, i.e. nine out of ten experiments would
be done on the computer and one in ten in the lab. They knew I was a crazy
mathematician and had no sense of reality. I knew they were wrong and they'
ve been proved wrong while I have been proved right. They built laboratories
when they didn't need them. I saw that computers were transforming science
because I spent a lot of time asking ``What will be the impact of computers
on science and how can I change it?'' I asked myself, ``How is it going to
change Bell Labs?'' I remarked one time, in the same address, that more than
one-half of the people at Bell Labs will be interacting closely with
computing machines before I leave. Well, you all have terminals now. I
thought hard about where was my field going, where were the opportunities,
and what were the important things to do. Let me go there so there is a
chance I can do important things.

Most great scientists know many important problems. They have something
between 10 and 20 important problems for which they are looking for an
attack. And when they see a new idea come up, one hears them say ``Well that
bears on this problem.'' They drop all the other things and get after it.
Now I can tell you a horror story that was told to me but I can't vouch for
the truth of it. I was sitting in an airport talking to a friend of mine
from Los Alamos about how it was lucky that the fission experiment occurred
over in Europe when it did because that got us working on the atomic bomb
here in the US. He said ``No; at Berkeley we had gathered a bunch of data;
we didn't get around to reducing it because we were building some more
equipment, but if we had reduced that data we would have found fission.''
They had it in their hands and they didn't pursue it. They came in second!

The great scientists, when an opportunity opens up, get after it and they
pursue it. They drop all other things. They get rid of other things and they
get after an idea because they had already thought the thing through. Their
minds are prepared; they see the opportunity and they go after it. Now of
course lots of times it doesn't work out, but you don't have to hit many of
them to do some great science. It's kind of easy. One of the chief tricks is
to live a long time!

Another trait, it took me a while to notice. I noticed the following facts
about people who work with the door open or the door closed. I notice that
if you have the door to your office closed, you get more work done today and
tomorrow, and you are more productive than most. But 10 years later somehow
you don't know quite know what problems are worth working on; all the hard
work you do is sort of tangential in importance. He who works with the door
open gets all kinds of interruptions, but he also occasionally gets clues as
to what the world is and what might be important. Now I cannot prove the
cause and effect sequence because you might say, ``The closed door is
symbolic of a closed mind.'' I don't know. But I can say there is a pretty
good correlation between those who work with the doors open and those who
ultimately do important things, although people who work with doors closed
often work harder. Somehow they seem to work on slightly the wrong thing -
not much, but enough that they miss fame.

I want to talk on another topic. It is based on the song which I think many
of you know, ``It ain't what you do, it's the way that you do it.'' I'll
start with an example of my own. I was conned into doing on a digital
computer, in the absolute binary days, a problem which the best analog
computers couldn't do. And I was getting an answer. When I thought carefully
and said to myself, ``You know, Hamming, you're going to have to file a
report on this military job; after you spend a lot of money you're going to
have to account for it and every analog installation is going to want the
report to see if they can't find flaws in it.'' I was doing the required
integration by a rather crummy method, to say the least, but I was getting
the answer. And I realized that in truth the problem was not just to get the
answer; it was to demonstrate for the first time, and beyond question, that
I could beat the analog computer on its own ground with a digital machine.
I reworked the method of solution, created a theory which was nice and
elegant, and changed the way we computed the answer; the results were no
different. The published report had an elegant method which was later known
for years as ``Hamming's Method of Integrating Differential Equations.'' It
is somewhat obsolete now, but for a while it was a very good method. By
changing the problem slightly, I did important work rather than trivial work.

In the same way, when using the machine up in the attic in the early days, I
was solving one problem after another after another; a fair number were
successful and there were a few failures. I went home one Friday after
finishing a problem, and curiously enough I wasn't happy; I was depressed. I
could see life being a long sequence of one problem after another after
another. After quite a while of thinking I decided, ``No, I should be in the
mass production of a variable product. I should be concerned with all of
next year's problems, not just the one in front of my face.'' By changing
the question I still got the same kind of results or better, but I changed
things and did important work. I attacked the major problem - How do I
conquer machines and do all of next year's problems when I don't know what
they are going to be? How do I prepare for it? How do I do this one so I'll
be on top of it? How do I obey Newton's rule? He said, ``If I have seen
further than others, it is because I've stood on the shoulders of giants.''
These days we stand on each other's feet!

You should do your job in such a fashion that others can build on top of it,
so they will indeed say, ``Yes, I've stood on so and so's shoulders and I
saw further.'' The essence of science is cumulative. By changing a problem
slightly you can often do great work rather than merely good work. Instead
of attacking isolated problems, I made the resolution that I would never
again solve an isolated problem except as characteristic of a class.

Now if you are much of a mathematician you know that the effort to
generalize often means that the solution is simple. Often by stopping and
saying, ``This is the problem he wants but this is characteristic of so and
so. Yes, I can attack the whole class with a far superior method than the
particular one because I was earlier embedded in needless detail.'' The
business of abstraction frequently makes things simple. Furthermore, I filed
away the methods and prepared for the future problems.

To end this part, I'll remind you, ``It is a poor workman who blames his
tools - the good man gets on with the job, given what he's got, and gets the
best answer he can.'' And I suggest that by altering the problem, by
looking at the thing differently, you can make a great deal of difference in
your final productivity because you can either do it in such a fashion that
people can indeed build on what you've done, or you can do it in such a
fashion that the next person has to essentially duplicate again what you've
done. It isn't just a matter of the job, it's the way you write the report,
the way you write the paper, the whole attitude. It's just as easy to do a
broad, general job as one very special case. And it's much more satisfying
and rewarding!

I have now come down to a topic which is very distasteful; it is not
sufficient to do a job, you have to sell it. `Selling' to a scientist is an
awkward thing to do. It's very ugly; you shouldn't have to do it. The world
is supposed to be waiting, and when you do something great, they should rush
out and welcome it. But the fact is everyone is busy with their own work.
You must present it so well that they will set aside what they are doing,
look at what you've done, read it, and come back and say, ``Yes, that was
good.'' I suggest that when you open a journal, as you turn the pages, you
ask why you read some articles and not others. You had better write your
report so when it is published in the Physical Review, or wherever else you
want it, as the readers are turning the pages they won't just turn your
pages but they will stop and read yours. If they don't stop and read it, you
won't get credit.

There are three things you have to do in selling. You have to learn to write
clearly and well so that people will read it, you must learn to give
reasonably formal talks, and you also must learn to give informal talks. We
had a lot of so-called `back room scientists.' In a conference, they would
keep quiet. Three weeks later after a decision was made they filed a report
saying why you should do so and so. Well, it was too late. They would not
stand up right in the middle of a hot conference, in the middle of activity,
and say, ``We should do this for these reasons.'' You need to master that
form of communication as well as prepared speeches.

When I first started, I got practically physically ill while giving a speech
, and I was very, very nervous. I realized I either had to learn to give
speeches smoothly or I would essentially partially cripple my whole career.
The first time IBM asked me to give a speech in New York one evening, I
decided I was going to give a really good speech, a speech that was wanted,
not a technical one but a broad one, and at the end if they liked it, I'd
quietly say, ``Any time you want one I'll come in and give you one.'' As a
result, I got a great deal of practice giving speeches to a limited audience
and I got over being afraid. Furthermore, I could also then study what
methods were effective and what were ineffective.

While going to meetings I had already been studying why some papers are
remembered and most are not. The technical person wants to give a highly
limited technical talk. Most of the time the audience wants a broad general
talk and wants much more survey and background than the speaker is willing
to give. As a result, many talks are ineffective. The speaker names a topic
and suddenly plunges into the details he's solved. Few people in the
audience may follow. You should paint a general picture to say why it's
important, and then slowly give a sketch of what was done. Then a larger
number of people will say, ``Yes, Joe has done that,'' or ``Mary has done
that; I really see where it is; yes, Mary really gave a good talk; I
understand what Mary has done.'' The tendency is to give a highly restricted
, safe talk; this is usually ineffective. Furthermore, many talks are filled
with far too much information. So I say this idea of selling is obvious.

Let me summarize. You've got to work on important problems. I deny that it
is all luck, but I admit there is a fair element of luck. I subscribe to
Pasteur's ``Luck favors the prepared mind.'' I favor heavily what I did.
Friday afternoons for years - great thoughts only - means that I committed
10% of my time trying to understand the bigger problems in the field, i.e.
what was and what was not important. I found in the early days I had
believed `this' and yet had spent all week marching in `that' direction. It
was kind of foolish. If I really believe the action is over there, why do I
march in this direction? I either had to change my goal or change what I did
. So I changed something I did and I marched in the direction I thought was
important. It's that easy.

Now you might tell me you haven't got control over what you have to work on.
Well, when you first begin, you may not. But once you're moderately
successful, there are more people asking for results than you can deliver
and you have some power of choice, but not completely. I'll tell you a story
about that, and it bears on the subject of educating your boss. I had a
boss named Schelkunoff; he was, and still is, a very good friend of mine.
Some military person came to me and demanded some answers by Friday. Well, I
had already dedicated my computing resources to reducing data on the fly
for a group of scientists; I was knee deep in short, small, important
problems. This military person wanted me to solve his problem by the end of
the day on Friday. I said, ``No, I'll give it to you Monday. I can work on
it over the weekend. I'm not going to do it now.'' He goes down to my boss,
Schelkunoff, and Schelkunoff says, ``You must run this for him; he's got to
have it by Friday.'' I tell him, ``Why do I?''; he says, ``You have to.'' I
said, ``Fine, Sergei, but you're sitting in your office Friday afternoon
catching the late bus home to watch as this fellow walks out that door.'' I
gave the military person the answers late Friday afternoon. I then went to
Schelkunoff's office and sat down; as the man goes out I say, ``You see
Schelkunoff, this fellow has nothing under his arm; but I gave him the
answers.'' On Monday morning Schelkunoff called him up and said, ``Did you
come in to work over the weekend?'' I could hear, as it were, a pause as the
fellow ran through his mind of what was going to happen; but he knew he
would have had to sign in, and he'd better not say he had when he hadn't, so
he said he hadn't. Ever after that Schelkunoff said, ``You set your
deadlines; you can change them.''

One lesson was sufficient to educate my boss as to why I didn't want to do
big jobs that displaced exploratory research and why I was justified in not
doing crash jobs which absorb all the research computing facilities. I
wanted instead to use the facilities to compute a large number of small
problems. Again, in the early days, I was limited in computing capacity and
it was clear, in my area, that a ``mathematician had no use for machines.''
But I needed more machine capacity. Every time I had to tell some scientist
in some other area, ``No I can't; I haven't the machine capacity,'' he
complained. I said ``Go tell your Vice President that Hamming needs more
computing capacity.'' After a while I could see what was happening up there
at the top; many people said to my Vice President, ``Your man needs more
computing capacity.'' I got it!

I also did a second thing. When I loaned what little programming power we
had to help in the early days of computing, I said, ``We are not getting the
recognition for our programmers that they deserve. When you publish a paper
you will thank that programmer or you aren't getting any more help from me.
That programmer is going to be thanked by name; she's worked hard.'' I
waited a couple of years. I then went through a year of BSTJ articles and
counted what fraction thanked some programmer. I took it into the boss and
said, ``That's the central role computing is playing in Bell Labs; if the
BSTJ is important, that's how important computing is.'' He had to give in.
You can educate your bosses. It's a hard job. In this talk I'm only viewing
from the bottom up; I'm not viewing from the top down. But I am telling you
how you can get what you want in spite of top management. You have to sell
your ideas there also.

Well I now come down to the topic, ``Is the effort to be a great scientist
worth it?'' To answer this, you must ask people. When you get beyond their
modesty, most people will say, ``Yes, doing really first-class work, and
knowing it, is as good as wine, women and song put together,'' or if it's a
woman she says, ``It is as good as wine, men and song put together.'' And if
you look at the bosses, they tend to come back or ask for reports, trying
to participate in those moments of discovery. They're always in the way. So
evidently those who have done it, want to do it again. But it is a limited
survey. I have never dared to go out and ask those who didn't do great work
how they felt about the matter. It's a biased sample, but I still think it
is worth the struggle. I think it is very definitely worth the struggle to
try and do first-class work because the truth is, the value is in the
struggle more than it is in the result. The struggle to make something of
yourself seems to be worthwhile in itself. The success and fame are sort of
dividends, in my opinion.

I've told you how to do it. It is so easy, so why do so many people, with
all their talents, fail? For example, my opinion, to this day, is that there
are in the mathematics department at Bell Labs quite a few people far more
able and far better endowed than I, but they didn't produce as much. Some of
them did produce more than I did; Shannon produced more than I did, and
some others produced a lot, but I was highly productive against a lot of
other fellows who were better equipped. Why is it so? What happened to them?
Why do so many of the people who have great promise, fail?

Well, one of the reasons is drive and commitment. The people who do great
work with less ability but who are committed to it, get more done that those
who have great skill and dabble in it, who work during the day and go home
and do other things and come back and work the next day. They don't have the
deep commitment that is apparently necessary for really first-class work.
They turn out lots of good work, but we were talking, remember, about first-
class work. There is a difference. Good people, very talented people, almost
always turn out good work. We're talking about the outstanding work, the
type of work that gets the Nobel Prize and gets recognition.

The second thing is, I think, the problem of personality defects. Now I'll
cite a fellow whom I met out in Irvine. He had been the head of a computing
center and he was temporarily on assignment as a special assistant to the
president of the university. It was obvious he had a job with a great future
. He took me into his office one time and showed me his method of getting
letters done and how he took care of his correspondence. He pointed out how
inefficient the secretary was. He kept all his letters stacked around there;
he knew where everything was. And he would, on his word processor, get the
letter out. He was bragging how marvelous it was and how he could get so
much more work done without the secretary's interference. Well, behind his
back, I talked to the secretary. The secretary said, ``Of course I can't
help him; I don't get his mail. He won't give me the stuff to log in; I don'
t know where he puts it on the floor. Of course I can't help him.'' So I
went to him and said, ``Look, if you adopt the present method and do what
you can do single-handedly, you can go just that far and no farther than you
can do single-handedly. If you will learn to work with the system, you can
go as far as the system will support you.'' And, he never went any further.
He had his personality defect of wanting total control and was not willing
to recognize that you need the support of the system.

You find this happening again and again; good scientists will fight the
system rather than learn to work with the system and take advantage of all
the system has to offer. It has a lot, if you learn how to use it. It takes
patience, but you can learn how to use the system pretty well, and you can
learn how to get around it. After all, if you want a decision `No', you just
go to your boss and get a `No' easy. If you want to do something, don't ask
, do it. Present him with an accomplished fact. Don't give him a chance to
tell you `No'. But if you want a `No', it's easy to get a `No'.

Another personality defect is ego assertion and I'll speak in this case of
my own experience. I came from Los Alamos and in the early days I was using
a machine in New York at 590 Madison Avenue where we merely rented time. I
was still dressing in western clothes, big slash pockets, a bolo and all
those things. I vaguely noticed that I was not getting as good service as
other people. So I set out to measure. You came in and you waited for your
turn; I felt I was not getting a fair deal. I said to myself, ``Why? No Vice
President at IBM said, `Give Hamming a bad time'. It is the secretaries at
the bottom who are doing this. When a slot appears, they'll rush to find
someone to slip in, but they go out and find somebody else. Now, why? I
haven't mistreated them.'' Answer, I wasn't dressing the way they felt
somebody in that situation should. It came down to just that - I wasn't
dressing properly. I had to make the decision - was I going to assert my ego
and dress the way I wanted to and have it steadily drain my effort from my
professional life, or was I going to appear to conform better? I decided I
would make an effort to appear to conform properly. The moment I did, I got
much better service. And now, as an old colorful character, I get better
service than other people.

You should dress according to the expectations of the audience spoken to. If
I am going to give an address at the MIT computer center, I dress with a
bolo and an old corduroy jacket or something else. I know enough not to let
my clothes, my appearance, my manners get in the way of what I care about.
An enormous number of scientists feel they must assert their ego and do
their thing their way. They have got to be able to do this, that, or the
other thing, and they pay a steady price.

John Tukey almost always dressed very casually. He would go into an
important office and it would take a long time before the other fellow
realized that this is a first-class man and he had better listen. For a long
time John has had to overcome this kind of hostility. It's wasted effort! I
didn't say you should conform; I said ``The appearance of conforming gets
you a long way.'' If you chose to assert your ego in any number of ways, ``I
am going to do it my way,'' you pay a small steady price throughout the
whole of your professional career. And this, over a whole lifetime, adds up
to an enormous amount of needless trouble.

By taking the trouble to tell jokes to the secretaries and being a little
friendly, I got superb secretarial help. For instance, one time for some
idiot reason all the reproducing services at Murray Hill were tied up. Don't
ask me how, but they were. I wanted something done. My secretary called up
somebody at Holmdel, hopped the company car, made the hour-long trip down
and got it reproduced, and then came back. It was a payoff for the times I
had made an effort to cheer her up, tell her jokes and be friendly; it was
that little extra work that later paid off for me. By realizing you have to
use the system and studying how to get the system to do your work, you learn
how to adapt the system to your desires. Or you can fight it steadily, as a
small undeclared war, for the whole of your life.

And I think John Tukey paid a terrible price needlessly. He was a genius
anyhow, but I think it would have been far better, and far simpler, had he
been willing to conform a little bit instead of ego asserting. He is going
to dress the way he wants all of the time. It applies not only to dress but
to a thousand other things; people will continue to fight the system. Not
that you shouldn't occasionally!

When they moved the library from the middle of Murray Hill to the far end, a
friend of mine put in a request for a bicycle. Well, the organization was
not dumb. They waited awhile and sent back a map of the grounds saying, ``
Will you please indicate on this map what paths you are going to take so we
can get an insurance policy covering you.'' A few more weeks went by. They
then asked, ``Where are you going to store the bicycle and how will it be
locked so we can do so and so.'' He finally realized that of course he was
going to be red-taped to death so he gave in. He rose to be the President of
Bell Laboratories.

Barney Oliver was a good man. He wrote a letter one time to the IEEE. At
that time the official shelf space at Bell Labs was so much and the height
of the IEEE Proceedings at that time was larger; and since you couldn't
change the size of the official shelf space he wrote this letter to the IEEE
Publication person saying, ``Since so many IEEE members were at Bell Labs
and since the official space was so high the journal size should be changed.
'' He sent it for his boss's signature. Back came a carbon with his
signature, but he still doesn't know whether the original was sent or not. I
am not saying you shouldn't make gestures of reform. I am saying that my
study of able people is that they don't get themselves committed to that
kind of warfare. They play it a little bit and drop it and get on with their
work.

Many a second-rate fellow gets caught up in some little twitting of the
system, and carries it through to warfare. He expends his energy in a
foolish project. Now you are going to tell me that somebody has to change
the system. I agree; somebody's has to. Which do you want to be? The person
who changes the system or the person who does first-class science? Which
person is it that you want to be? Be clear, when you fight the system and
struggle with it, what you are doing, how far to go out of amusement, and
how much to waste your effort fighting the system. My advice is to let
somebody else do it and you get on with becoming a first-class scientist.
Very few of you have the ability to both reform the system and become a
first-class scientist.

On the other hand, we can't always give in. There are times when a certain
amount of rebellion is sensible. I have observed almost all scientists enjoy
a certain amount of twitting the system for the sheer love of it. What it
comes down to basically is that you cannot be original in one area without
having originality in others. Originality is being different. You can't be
an original scientist without having some other original characteristics.
But many a scientist has let his quirks in other places make him pay a far
higher price than is necessary for the ego satisfaction he or she gets. I'm
not against all ego assertion; I'm against some.

Another fault is anger. Often a scientist becomes angry, and this is no way
to handle things. Amusement, yes, anger, no. Anger is misdirected. You
should follow and cooperate rather than struggle against the system all the
time.

Another thing you should look for is the positive side of things instead of
the negative. I have already given you several examples, and there are many,
many more; how, given the situation, by changing the way I looked at it, I
converted what was apparently a defect to an asset. I'll give you another
example. I am an egotistical person; there is no doubt about it. I knew that
most people who took a sabbatical to write a book, didn't finish it on time
. So before I left, I told all my friends that when I come back, that book
was going to be done! Yes, I would have it done - I'd have been ashamed to
come back without it! I used my ego to make myself behave the way I wanted
to. I bragged about something so I'd have to perform. I found out many times
, like a cornered rat in a real trap, I was surprisingly capable. I have
found that it paid to say, ``Oh yes, I'll get the answer for you Tuesday,''
not having any idea how to do it. By Sunday night I was really hard thinking
on how I was going to deliver by Tuesday. I often put my pride on the line
and sometimes I failed, but as I said, like a cornered rat I'm surprised how
often I did a good job. I think you need to learn to use yourself. I think
you need to know how to convert a situation from one view to another which
would increase the chance of success.

Now self-delusion in humans is very, very common. There are enumerable ways
of you changing a thing and kidding yourself and making it look some other
way. When you ask, ``Why didn't you do such and such,'' the person has a
thousand alibis. If you look at the history of science, usually these days
there are 10 people right there ready, and we pay off for the person who is
there first. The other nine fellows say, ``Well, I had the idea but I didn't
do it and so on and so on.'' There are so many alibis. Why weren't you
first? Why didn't you do it right? Don't try an alibi. Don't try and kid
yourself. You can tell other people all the alibis you want. I don't mind.
But to yourself try to be honest.

If you really want to be a first-class scientist you need to know yourself,
your weaknesses, your strengths, and your bad faults, like my egotism. How
can you convert a fault to an asset? How can you convert a situation where
you haven't got enough manpower to move into a direction when that's exactly
what you need to do? I say again that I have seen, as I studied the history
, the successful scientist changed the viewpoint and what was a defect
became an asset.

In summary, I claim that some of the reasons why so many people who have
greatness within their grasp don't succeed are: they don't work on important
problems, they don't become emotionally involved, they don't try and change
what is difficult to some other situation which is easily done but is still
important, and they keep giving themselves alibis why they don't. They keep
saying that it is a matter of luck. I've told you how easy it is;
furthermore I've told you how to reform. Therefore, go forth and become
great scientists!

(End of the formal part of the talk.)

DISCUSSION - QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

A. G. Chynoweth: Well that was 50 minutes of concentrated wisdom and
observations accumulated over a fantastic career; I lost track of all the
observations that were striking home. Some of them are very very timely. One
was the plea for more computer capacity; I was hearing nothing but that
this morning from several people, over and over again. So that was right on
the mark today even though here we are 20 - 30 years after when you were
making similar remarks, Dick. I can think of all sorts of lessons that all
of us can draw from your talk. And for one, as I walk around the halls in
the future I hope I won't see as many closed doors in Bellcore. That was one
observation I thought was very intriguing.

Thank you very, very much indeed Dick; that was a wonderful recollection. I'
ll now open it up for questions. I'm sure there are many people who would
like to take up on some of the points that Dick was making.

Hamming: First let me respond to Alan Chynoweth about computing. I had
computing in research and for 10 years I kept telling my management, ``Get
that !&@#% machine out of research. We are being forced to run problems all
the time. We can't do research because were too busy operating and running
the computing machines.'' Finally the message got through. They were going
to move computing out of research to someplace else. I was persona non grata
to say the least and I was surprised that people didn't kick my shins
because everybody was having their toy taken away from them. I went in to Ed
David's office and said, ``Look Ed, you've got to give your researchers a
machine. If you give them a great big machine, we'll be back in the same
trouble we were before, so busy keeping it going we can't think. Give them
the smallest machine you can because they are very able people. They will
learn how to do things on a small machine instead of mass computing.'' As
far as I'm concerned, that's how UNIX arose. We gave them a moderately small
machine and they decided to make it do great things. They had to come up
with a system to do it on. It is called UNIX!

A. G. Chynoweth: I just have to pick up on that one. In our present
environment, Dick, while we wrestle with some of the red tape attributed to,
or required by, the regulators, there is one quote that one exasperated AVP
came up with and I've used it over and over again. He growled that, ``UNIX
was never a deliverable!''

Question: What about personal stress? Does that seem to make a difference?

Hamming: Yes, it does. If you don't get emotionally involved, it doesn't. I
had incipient ulcers most of the years that I was at Bell Labs. I have since
gone off to the Naval Postgraduate School and laid back somewhat, and now
my health is much better. But if you want to be a great scientist you're
going to have to put up with stress. You can lead a nice life; you can be a
nice guy or you can be a great scientist. But nice guys end last, is what
Leo Durocher said. If you want to lead a nice happy life with a lot of
recreation and everything else, you'll lead a nice life.

Question: The remarks about having courage, no one could argue with; but
those of us who have gray hairs or who are well established don't have to
worry too much. But what I sense among the young people these days is a real
concern over the risk taking in a highly competitive environment. Do you
have any words of wisdom on this?

Hamming: I'll quote Ed David more. Ed David was concerned about the general
loss of nerve in our society. It does seem to me that we've gone through
various periods. Coming out of the war, coming out of Los Alamos where we
built the bomb, coming out of building the radars and so on, there came into
the mathematics department, and the research area, a group of people with a
lot of guts. They've just seen things done; they've just won a war which
was fantastic. We had reasons for having courage and therefore we did a
great deal. I can't arrange that situation to do it again. I cannot blame
the present generation for not having it, but I agree with what you say; I
just cannot attach blame to it. It doesn't seem to me they have the desire
for greatness; they lack the courage to do it. But we had, because we were
in a favorable circumstance to have it; we just came through a tremendously
successful war. In the war we were looking very, very bad for a long while;
it was a very desperate struggle as you well know. And our success, I think,
gave us courage and self confidence; that's why you see, beginning in the
late forties through the fifties, a tremendous productivity at the labs
which was stimulated from the earlier times. Because many of us were earlier
forced to learn other things - we were forced to learn the things we didn't
want to learn, we were forced to have an open door - and then we could
exploit those things we learned. It is true, and I can't do anything about
it; I cannot blame the present generation either. It's just a fact.

Question: Is there something management could or should do?

Hamming: Management can do very little. If you want to talk about managing
research, that's a totally different talk. I'd take another hour doing that.
This talk is about how the individual gets very successful research done in
spite of anything the management does or in spite of any other opposition.
And how do you do it? Just as I observe people doing it. It's just that
simple and that hard!

Question: Is brainstorming a daily process?

Hamming: Once that was a very popular thing, but it seems not to have paid
off. For myself I find it desirable to talk to other people; but a session
of brainstorming is seldom worthwhile. I do go in to strictly talk to
somebody and say, ``Look, I think there has to be something here. Here's
what I think I see ...'' and then begin talking back and forth. But you want
to pick capable people. To use another analogy, you know the idea called
the `critical mass.' If you have enough stuff you have critical mass. There
is also the idea I used to call `sound absorbers'. When you get too many
sound absorbers, you give out an idea and they merely say, ``Yes, yes, yes.'
' What you want to do is get that critical mass in action; ``Yes, that
reminds me of so and so,'' or, ``Have you thought about that or this?'' When
you talk to other people, you want to get rid of those sound absorbers who
are nice people but merely say, ``Oh yes,'' and to find those who will
stimulate you right back.

For example, you couldn't talk to John Pierce without being stimulated very
quickly. There were a group of other people I used to talk with. For example
there was Ed Gilbert; I used to go down to his office regularly and ask him
questions and listen and come back stimulated. I picked my people carefully
with whom I did or whom I didn't brainstorm because the sound absorbers are
a curse. They are just nice guys; they fill the whole space and they
contribute nothing except they absorb ideas and the new ideas just die away
instead of echoing on. Yes, I find it necessary to talk to people. I think
people with closed doors fail to do this so they fail to get their ideas
sharpened, such as ``Did you ever notice something over here?'' I never knew
anything about it - I can go over and look. Somebody points the way. On my
visit here, I have already found several books that I must read when I get
home. I talk to people and ask questions when I think they can answer me and
give me clues that I do not know about. I go out and look!

Question: What kind of tradeoffs did you make in allocating your time for
reading and writing and actually doing research?

Hamming: I believed, in my early days, that you should spend at least as
much time in the polish and presentation as you did in the original research
. Now at least 50% of the time must go for the presentation. It's a big, big
number.

Question: How much effort should go into library work?

Hamming: It depends upon the field. I will say this about it. There was a
fellow at Bell Labs, a very, very, smart guy. He was always in the library;
he read everything. If you wanted references, you went to him and he gave
you all kinds of references. But in the middle of forming these theories, I
formed a proposition: there would be no effect named after him in the long
run. He is now retired from Bell Labs and is an Adjunct Professor. He was
very valuable; I'm not questioning that. He wrote some very good Physical
Review articles; but there's no effect named after him because he read too
much. If you read all the time what other people have done you will think
the way they thought. If you want to think new thoughts that are different,
then do what a lot of creative people do - get the problem reasonably clear
and then refuse to look at any answers until you've thought the problem
through carefully how you would do it, how you could slightly change the
problem to be the correct one. So yes, you need to keep up. You need to keep
up more to find out what the problems are than to read to find the
solutions. The reading is necessary to know what is going on and what is
possible. But reading to get the solutions does not seem to be the way to do
great research. So I'll give you two answers. You read; but it is not the
amount, it is the way you read that counts.

Question: How do you get your name attached to things?

Hamming: By doing great work. I'll tell you the hamming window one. I had
given Tukey a hard time, quite a few times, and I got a phone call from him
from Princeton to me at Murray Hill. I knew that he was writing up power
spectra and he asked me if I would mind if he called a certain window a ``
Hamming window.'' And I said to him, ``Come on, John; you know perfectly
well I did only a small part of the work but you also did a lot.'' He said,
``Yes, Hamming, but you contributed a lot of small things; you're entitled
to some credit.'' So he called it the hamming window. Now, let me go on. I
had twitted John frequently about true greatness. I said true greatness is
when your name is like ampere, watt, and fourier - when it's spelled with a
lower case letter. That's how the hamming window came about.

Question: Dick, would you care to comment on the relative effectiveness
between giving talks, writing papers, and writing books?

Hamming: In the short-haul, papers are very important if you want to
stimulate someone tomorrow. If you want to get recognition long-haul, it
seems to me writing books is more contribution because most of us need
orientation. In this day of practically infinite knowledge, we need
orientation to find our way. Let me tell you what infinite knowledge is.
Since from the time of Newton to now, we have come close to doubling
knowledge every 17 years, more or less. And we cope with that, essentially,
by specialization. In the next 340 years at that rate, there will be 20
doublings, i.e. a million, and there will be a million fields of specialty
for every one field now. It isn't going to happen. The present growth of
knowledge will choke itself off until we get different tools. I believe that
books which try to digest, coordinate, get rid of the duplication, get rid
of the less fruitful methods and present the underlying ideas clearly of
what we know now, will be the things the future generations will value.
Public talks are necessary; private talks are necessary; written papers are
necessary. But I am inclined to believe that, in the long-haul, books which
leave out what's not essential are more important than books which tell you
everything because you don't want to know everything. I don't want to know
that much about penguins is the usual reply. You just want to know the
essence.

Question: You mentioned the problem of the Nobel Prize and the subsequent
notoriety of what was done to some of the careers. Isn't that kind of a much
more broad problem of fame? What can one do?

Hamming: Some things you could do are the following. Somewhere around every
seven years make a significant, if not complete, shift in your field. Thus,
I shifted from numerical analysis, to hardware, to software, and so on,
periodically, because you tend to use up your ideas. When you go to a new
field, you have to start over as a baby. You are no longer the big mukity
muk and you can start back there and you can start planting those acorns
which will become the giant oaks. Shannon, I believe, ruined himself. In
fact when he left Bell Labs, I said, ``That's the end of Shannon's
scientific career.'' I received a lot of flak from my friends who said that
Shannon was just as smart as ever. I said, ``Yes, he'll be just as smart,
but that's the end of his scientific career,'' and I truly believe it was.

You have to change. You get tired after a while; you use up your originality
in one field. You need to get something nearby. I'm not saying that you
shift from music to theoretical physics to English literature; I mean within
your field you should shift areas so that you don't go stale. You couldn't
get away with forcing a change every seven years, but if you could, I would
require a condition for doing research, being that you will change your
field of research every seven years with a reasonable definition of what it
means, or at the end of 10 years, management has the right to compel you to
change. I would insist on a change because I'm serious. What happens to the
old fellows is that they get a technique going; they keep on using it. They
were marching in that direction which was right then, but the world changes.
There's the new direction; but the old fellows are still marching in their
former direction.

You need to get into a new field to get new viewpoints, and before you use
up all the old ones. You can do something about this, but it takes effort
and energy. It takes courage to say, ``Yes, I will give up my great
reputation.'' For example, when error correcting codes were well launched,
having these theories, I said, ``Hamming, you are going to quit reading
papers in the field; you are going to ignore it completely; you are going to
try and do something else other than coast on that.'' I deliberately
refused to go on in that field. I wouldn't even read papers to try to force
myself to have a chance to do something else. I managed myself, which is
what I'm preaching in this whole talk. Knowing many of my own faults, I
manage myself. I have a lot of faults, so I've got a lot of problems, i.e. a
lot of possibilities of management.

Question: Would you compare research and management?

Hamming: If you want to be a great researcher, you won't make it being
president of the company. If you want to be president of the company, that's
another thing. I'm not against being president of the company. I just don't
want to be. I think Ian Ross does a good job as President of Bell Labs. I'm
not against it; but you have to be clear on what you want. Furthermore,
when you're young, you may have picked wanting to be a great scientist, but
as you live longer, you may change your mind. For instance, I went to my
boss, Bode, one day and said, ``Why did you ever become department head? Why
didn't you just be a good scientist?'' He said, ``Hamming, I had a vision
of what mathematics should be in Bell Laboratories. And I saw if that vision
was going to be realized, I had to make it happen; I had to be department
head.'' When your vision of what you want to do is what you can do single-
handedly, then you should pursue it. The day your vision, what you think
needs to be done, is bigger than what you can do single-handedly, then you
have to move toward management. And the bigger the vision is, the farther in
management you have to go. If you have a vision of what the whole
laboratory should be, or the whole Bell System, you have to get there to
make it happen. You can't make it happen from the bottom very easily. It
depends upon what goals and what desires you have. And as they change in
life, you have to be prepared to change. I chose to avoid management because
I preferred to do what I could do single-handedly. But that's the choice
that I made, and it is biased. Each person is entitled to their choice. Keep
an open mind. But when you do choose a path, for heaven's sake be aware of
what you have done and the choice you have made. Don't try to do both sides.

Question: How important is one's own expectation or how important is it to
be in a group or surrounded by people who expect great work from you?

Hamming: At Bell Labs everyone expected good work from me - it was a big
help. Everybody expects you to do a good job, so you do, if you've got pride
. I think it's very valuable to have first-class people around. I sought out
the best people. The moment that physics table lost the best people, I left
. The moment I saw that the same was true of the chemistry table, I left. I
tried to go with people who had great ability so I could learn from them and
who would expect great results out of me. By deliberately managing myself,
I think I did much better than laissez faire.

Question: You, at the outset of your talk, minimized or played down luck;
but you seemed also to gloss over the circumstances that got you to Los
Alamos, that got you to Chicago, that got you to Bell Laboratories.

Hamming: There was some luck. On the other hand I don't know the alternate
branches. Until you can say that the other branches would not have been
equally or more successful, I can't say. Is it luck the particular thing you
do? For example, when I met Feynman at Los Alamos, I knew he was going to
get a Nobel Prize. I didn't know what for. But I knew darn well he was going
to do great work. No matter what directions came up in the future, this man
would do great work. And sure enough, he did do great work. It isn't that
you only do a little great work at this circumstance and that was luck,
there are many opportunities sooner or later. There are a whole pail full of
opportunities, of which, if you're in this situation, you seize one and you
're great over there instead of over here. There is an element of luck, yes
and no. Luck favors a prepared mind; luck favors a prepared person. It is
not guaranteed; I don't guarantee success as being absolutely certain. I'd
say luck changes the odds, but there is some definite control on the part of
the individual.

Go forth, then, and do great work!

(End of the General Research Colloquium Talk.)

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF RICHARD HAMMING

Richard W. Hamming was born February 11, 1915, in Chicago, Illinois. His
formal education was marked by the following degrees (all in mathematics): B
.S. 1937, University of Chicago; M.A. 1939, University of Nebraska; and Ph.D
. 1942, University of Illinois. His early experience was obtained at Los
Alamos 1945-1946, i.e. at the close of World War II, where he managed the
computers used in building the first atomic bomb. From there he went
directly to Bell Laboratories where he spent thirty years in various aspects
of computing, numerical analysis, and management of computing, i.e. 1946-
1976. On July 23, 1976 he `moved his office' to the Naval Postgraduate
School in Monterey, California where he taught, supervised research, and
wrote books.

While at Bell Laboratories, he took time to teach in Universities, sometimes
locally and sometimes on a full sabbatical leave; these activities included
visiting professorships at New York University, Princeton University (
Statistics), City College of New York, Stanford University, 1960-61, Stevens
Institute of Technology (Mathematics), and the University of California,
Irvine, 1970-71.

Richard Hamming has received a number of awards which include: Fellow, IEEE,
1968; the ACM Turing Prize, 1968; the IEEE Emanuel R. Piore Award, 1979;
Member, National Academy of Engineering, 1980; and the Harold Pender Award,
U. Penn., 1981. In 1987 a major IEEE award was named after him, namely the
Richard W. Hamming Medal, ``For exceptional contributions to information
sciences and systems''; fittingly, he was also the first recipient of this
award, 1988. In 1996 in Munich he received the prestigious $130,000 Eduard
Rhein Award for Achievement in Technology for his work on error correcting
codes. He was both a Founder and Past President of ACM, and a Vice Pres. of
the AAAS Mathematics Section.

He is probably best known for his pioneering work on error-correcting codes,
his work on integrating differential equations, and the spectral window
which bears his name. His extensive writing has included a number of
important, pioneering, and highly regarded books. These are:

* Numerical Methods for Scientists and Engineers, McGraw-Hill, 1962;
Second edition 1973; Reprinted by Dover 1985; Translated into Russian.
* Calculus and the Computer Revolution, Houghton-Mifflin, 1968.
* Introduction to Applied Numerical Analysis, McGraw-Hill, 1971.
* Computers and Society, McGraw-Hill, 1972.
* Digital Filters, Prentice-Hall, 1977; Second edition 1983; Third
edition 1989; translated into several European languages.
* Coding and Information Theory, Prentice-Hall, 1980; Second edition
1986.
* Methods of Mathematics Applied to Calculus, Probability and Statistics
, Prentice-Hall, 1985.
* The Art of Probability for Scientists and Engineers, Addison-Wesley,
1991.
* The Art of Doing Science and Engineering: Learning to Learn, Gordon
and Breach, 1997.

He continued a very active life as Adjunct Professor, teaching and writing
in the Mathematics and Computer Science Departments at the Naval
Postgraduate School, Monterey, California for another twenty-one years
before he retired to become Professor Emeritus in 1997. He was still
teaching a course in the fall of 1997. He passed away unexpectedly on
January 7, 1998.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I would like to acknowledge the professional efforts of Donna Paradise of
the Word Processing Center who did the initial transcription of the talk
from the tape recording. She made my job of editing much easier. The errors
of sentence parsing and punctuation are mine and mine alone. Finally I would
like to express my sincere appreciation to Richard Hamming and Alan
Chynoweth for all of their help in bringing this transcription to its
present readable state.

J. F. Kaiser
--
谁能为我的梦想
插上一对纸做的翅膀
哪怕只是瞬间的光芒
就算他们说那是鸟人
永远飞不到天堂
可是都还在抬头仰望


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