Science is composed of laws which were originally based on a small, carefully selected set of observations, often not very accurately measured originally; but the laws have later been found to apply over much wider ranges of observations and much more accurately than the original data justified.
Interpretation
Science evolves from limited observations into broader, more accurate laws over time.
Richard Hamming's quote emphasizes the foundational aspect of scientific laws, which emerge from specific observations that may not be precise. Over time, these laws are tested and refined, revealing their broader applicability and increasing accuracy, showcasing the dynamic nature of scientific inquiry and understanding.
In practice
In a scientific seminar discussing the evolution of theories based on initial observations.
When you are famous it is hard to work on small problems. This is what did [Claude Elwood] 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.
Does anyone believe that the difference between the Lebesgue and Riemann integrals can have physical significance, and that whether say, an airplane would or would not fly could depend on this difference? If such were claimed, I should not care to fly in that plane.
If you don't work on important problems, it's not likely that you'll do important work.
Beware of finding what you're looking for._x000D_ _x000D_ A favorite aphorism he often used.
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.
Put glibly:_x000D_ _x000D_ In science if you know what you are doing you should not be doing it._x000D_ _x000D_ In engineering if you do not know what you are doing you should not be doing it._x000D_ _x000D_ Of course, you seldom, if ever, see either pure state.
All of my life, I have been fascinated by the big questions that face us, and have tried to find scientific answers to them. If, like me, you have looked at the stars, and tried to make sense of what you see, you too have started to wonder what makes the universe exist.
I met with amnesiacs and savants, educators and scientists, to try to understand what memory is, why it works, why it sometimes doesn't, and what its potential might be.
Something can be real - actually existing, not merely illusory - and yet not be fundamental. Scientists used to think that heat, for example, was a fluidlike substance called 'caloric' that flowed from hot objects to colder ones.
There is no energy crisis, only a crisis of ignorance.
Even the facts of science may dust the mind by their dryness, unless they are ... rendered fertile by the dews of fresh and living truth. Knowledge does not come to us by details, but in flashes of light from heaven.
In physics, your solution should convince a reasonable person. In math, you have to convince a person who's trying to make trouble. Ultimately, in physics, you're hoping to convince Nature. And I've found Nature to be pretty reasonable.
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