Error-Correcting Codes.
There are two subject matters in this lecture; the first is the ostensible topic,
error correcting codes, and the other is how the process of discovery sometimes goes -
you all know that I am the official discoverer of the Hamming error correcting codes.
Thus I am presumably in a position to describe how they were found. But you should
beware of any reports of this kind. It is true at that time I was already very
interested in the process of discovery, believing that in many cases the method
of discovery is more important than what is discovered. I knew enough not to
think about the process when doing research, just as athletes do not think about
style when the engage in sports, but they practice the style until it is more or
less automatic. I had thus established the habit that, after something of great
or small importance was discovered, of going back and trying to trace the steps
by which it apparently happened. But do not be deceived; at best I can give the
conscious part, and a bit of the upper subconscious part, but we simply do not
know how the unconscious works its magic.
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