The Art of Doing Science and Engineering: Learning to Learn

At the end of the fourth section the author/lecturer claims that since great writers never took creative writing classes, people can't take programming classes and become better programmers. He claims years of experience to back up his assertion. So, then, the idea that this book or lecture series is about learning to learn is nonsense. You either are good at something or not, according to this book. Aside from casually insulting its most likely readers the book reads like a self-important monologue and contains information that is outdated by decades. Pointless drivel about the history of computing, with which practically any aspiring engineer would already have a passing familiarity. Do not bother.

This book was published in May 2020, but many of the remarks on computing would have been out of date in 2010. The preface asserts that this book is adapted from Hamming's lectures, brought up to date and reformatted to best deliver the information in book form. In reality, it's clear that many of the sentences haven't been updated in over 20 years. In addition, the reader is constantly addressed as if he were a student at Hamming's institution. If you can get over the insulting cash grab, this book offers some good insights from one of the great minds of last century. Just don't believe the claim that it's more than a collection of lightly edited lecture transcripts.

First, I'll say that this book is beautifully laid out, printed, and bound. It feels like a classic. As the brag sheet suggests, this is a mixture of technical content and musings on the practice of engineering. Unfortunately, it doesn't manage to do well at either one. The technical content is incomplete -- proofs of theorems that are never stated, use of terms without definitions, and the mathematician's usual waving-off of the difficult bits with words like "obviously". If you're familiar with the topic, this will help you remember some of the details ("ah, yes, I remember Gibbs' inequality"). If you are not familiar, this will be an exercise in frustration as you find yourself unable to fill in the details Hamming has omitted, and you will skip to the end of the chapter for the "pearls of wisdom". ..which also leave much to be desired. These are platitudes like "always understand the fundamentals" or "sometimes changes like faster computation introduce new possibilities, but sometimes not". These aren't untrue and may be useful starting points for beginning engineers to structure their own understanding of the field, but they are presented without much elaboration or depth. For example, what are some characteristics of an incremental change that might uncover new possibilities? On that, Hamming is silent.

I've had the 1997 edition - paperback, Gordon and Breach Science publishers - for many years and it is among my favorites. Richard Hamming was an excellent writer - and this book is one of his best (I also very much like his "Methods of Mathematics" and "Numerical Methods for Scientists and Engineers". Anyway - without going at all into why this book is so good (for that i refer you to the reviews of the 1st edition at https://www.amazon.com/Art-Doing-Science-Engineering-Learning/dp/9056995006 ) I wanted to say this new hardback edition is just a beautiful book. Very high quality production. I'm very glad to have it.

I came by Richard Hamming via a footnote on an essay on learning what it takes to become better at handling information. With my curiosity piqued, I decided to purchase this new edition, and I'm glad I did. I'm nearly two-thirds through it, and I've already jotted down several notes on passages where Professor Hamming goes into detail on communicating ideas better, coding, learning, and mathematics. His chapter on Claude Shannon's Information (Communication) Theory is worth the price of the book alone. I realise this book is not groundbreaking, but I've enjoyed his thought process as it differs from many similar books where it leaves me to reflect on things I was taking for granted in my thinking. And any book that's a cause for reflection on one's thoughts is a worthy exercise if it means overall better progress for oneself.

The description of the book is very, very misleading. The most revealing word in the description (by no means given special prominence) is "treatise". This is, indeed, just that. It's one professor's thoughts, packaged as a course textbook. The content may be good but the presentation style (more informal than not notes in between course-specific instructions) isn't what was expected based on the description and doesn't look particularly user-friendly if you aren't reading it for the course.

This is not a book about a topic in engineering. It figured on learning to think to move society forward through engineering. How does a new engineer prepare for an unknown future? What direction can you prepare for? Who knows, but change is going to happen. Be prepared!

Stripe Press is curating an amazing collection of science and technology books from the recent past. This work is by Hamming, who worked alongside (literally in the same office) as Claude Shannon at Bell Labs. Hamming is a giant in engineering for his pioneering work in how to produce error-correcting codes. Hamming wrote this in hopes that it would inspire students to find and nourish the greatness within themselves. Although I wasn't lucky enough to have been one of Hamming's students, I am lucky enough to buy and read this book.

I'm halfway tempted to write my engineering college and demand a full refund considering this book wasn't required reading. This is a must have for anyone in an engineering field(or any STEM field for that matter). The book is written so well. Hamming somewhat apologizes for the first person references in the intro, I would argue this is the best part. His anecdotes about how he learned a particular lesson were not only engaging to read, but clearly defined the message. It almost felt like I was having coffee with this guy and he was telling old war stories. Seriously one of the most unique science books I've ever read. The more technical chapters on error coding and filters were the real reason I purchased the book, as I had been doing some ECC implementations and was looking to really see how this was "discovered". These chapters (while brillant) were actually not the parts I enjoyed the most. The chapters on simulation actually had me screaming "YES!" when he describes reliance on simulation as a mistake, and that simulation only closely approximates reality. His insistence that while fast simulations are great, time between the simulations can be just as important, and that a true scientist should be thinking about the results before the results are calculated. These thought simulations allow the scientist/engineer to start thinking about the problem and what the simulation doesn't account for. It was quite refreshing to hear this. Ever since reading this book, I've started purchasing a copy for anyone who works under me. Understanding the math behind the problems isn't required. It's nice, to understand it, but certainly not the value you should receive out of this. Again, I honestly am floored that this wasn't required reading where I attended college. It's possible that someone in college would not be able to appreciate it, but after being in my career for 8 years, it is truly the most interesting and engaging STEM book I have read.

This book is perfectly written like a college lecture, and even describes itself as so. Like any good college lecture, there's an adequate amount of rambling and anecdotes, interspersed with sporadic great ideas for those able to muster energy to stagger forward and stay awake. This has made it a difficult work to struggle through as a book to read before bedtime. It really brought me back to the physics classes of my college days, praying the professor could locate and make a point in any thirty minute stretch and then painfully trying to understand the connections of stray thoughts to the equations which seemed to come out of thin air. I was hoping for something more cohesive, but Hamming's undoubtable brilliance makes this an interesting read for those willing to cope with the style. Be ready for fascinating stories about computing history, predictions for the future, and different ways of thinking about things from a great mind.

At the end of the fourth section the author/lecturer claims that since great writers never took creative writing classes, people can't take programming classes and become better programmers. He claims years of experience to back up his assertion. So, then, the idea that this book or lecture series is about learning to learn is nonsense. You either are good at something or not, according to this book. Aside from casually insulting its most likely readers the book reads like a self-important monologue and contains information that is outdated by decades. Pointless drivel about the history of computing, with which practically any aspiring engineer would already have a passing familiarity. Do not bother.

This book was published in May 2020, but many of the remarks on computing would have been out of date in 2010. The preface asserts that this book is adapted from Hamming's lectures, brought up to date and reformatted to best deliver the information in book form. In reality, it's clear that many of the sentences haven't been updated in over 20 years. In addition, the reader is constantly addressed as if he were a student at Hamming's institution. If you can get over the insulting cash grab, this book offers some good insights from one of the great minds of last century. Just don't believe the claim that it's more than a collection of lightly edited lecture transcripts.

First, I'll say that this book is beautifully laid out, printed, and bound. It feels like a classic. As the brag sheet suggests, this is a mixture of technical content and musings on the practice of engineering. Unfortunately, it doesn't manage to do well at either one. The technical content is incomplete -- proofs of theorems that are never stated, use of terms without definitions, and the mathematician's usual waving-off of the difficult bits with words like "obviously". If you're familiar with the topic, this will help you remember some of the details ("ah, yes, I remember Gibbs' inequality"). If you are not familiar, this will be an exercise in frustration as you find yourself unable to fill in the details Hamming has omitted, and you will skip to the end of the chapter for the "pearls of wisdom". ..which also leave much to be desired. These are platitudes like "always understand the fundamentals" or "sometimes changes like faster computation introduce new possibilities, but sometimes not". These aren't untrue and may be useful starting points for beginning engineers to structure their own understanding of the field, but they are presented without much elaboration or depth. For example, what are some characteristics of an incremental change that might uncover new possibilities? On that, Hamming is silent.

I've had the 1997 edition - paperback, Gordon and Breach Science publishers - for many years and it is among my favorites. Richard Hamming was an excellent writer - and this book is one of his best (I also very much like his "Methods of Mathematics" and "Numerical Methods for Scientists and Engineers". Anyway - without going at all into why this book is so good (for that i refer you to the reviews of the 1st edition at https://www.amazon.com/Art-Doing-Science-Engineering-Learning/dp/9056995006 ) I wanted to say this new hardback edition is just a beautiful book. Very high quality production. I'm very glad to have it.

I came by Richard Hamming via a footnote on an essay on learning what it takes to become better at handling information. With my curiosity piqued, I decided to purchase this new edition, and I'm glad I did. I'm nearly two-thirds through it, and I've already jotted down several notes on passages where Professor Hamming goes into detail on communicating ideas better, coding, learning, and mathematics. His chapter on Claude Shannon's Information (Communication) Theory is worth the price of the book alone. I realise this book is not groundbreaking, but I've enjoyed his thought process as it differs from many similar books where it leaves me to reflect on things I was taking for granted in my thinking. And any book that's a cause for reflection on one's thoughts is a worthy exercise if it means overall better progress for oneself.

The description of the book is very, very misleading. The most revealing word in the description (by no means given special prominence) is "treatise". This is, indeed, just that. It's one professor's thoughts, packaged as a course textbook. The content may be good but the presentation style (more informal than not notes in between course-specific instructions) isn't what was expected based on the description and doesn't look particularly user-friendly if you aren't reading it for the course.