"From these early attempts to explain things slowly came philosophy as well as our present science. Not that science explains "why" things are as the… - Richard Hamming

"From these early attempts to explain things slowly came philosophy as well as our present science. Not that science explains "why" things are as they are - gravitation does not explain why things fall - but science gives so many details of "how" that we have the feeling we understand "why." Let us be clear about this point; it is by the sea of interrelated details that science seems to say "why" the universe is as it is."

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About Richard Hamming

Richard Wesley Hamming (February 11, 1915 – January 7, 1998) was an American mathematician whose work had many implications for computer science and telecommunications. He received the 1968 Turing Award "for his work on numerical methods, automatic coding systems, and error-detecting and error-correcting codes."

Biography information from Wikiquote

Also Known As

Native Name: Richard Wesley Hamming
Alternative Names: Richard W. Hamming
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Additional quotes by Richard Hamming

Besides the theory there are a lot of small technical details that must be learned so well that you can recall them almost instantaneously, such as the trigonometric identities... put one part of the identity on one side of a 3 x 5 card and the other part on the other side. Using these flash cards you can, in the odd moments of your daily life, learn the mechanical parts of the course. ...for this kind of low-level material many short learning sessions are much more efficient than a few long, intense ones; but this is not necessarily true for larger ideas. ...most students will not use such trivial devices as flash cards; it seems to be beneath their dignity. They suffer accordingly.

Understanding the methods of calculus is vital to the creative use of mathematics... Without this mastery the average scientist or engineer, or any other user of mathematics, will be perpetually stunted in development, and will at best be able to follow only what the textbooks say; with mastery, new things can be done, even in old, well-established fields.

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