To me, the speech’s impact diluted among its many disconnected insights. I didn’t come away with a clear new model for how to structure my research career, so I ignored Hamming’s advice, responding politely, but somewhat dismissively, as readers continued to point me toward the talk as a potential source of wisdom.
Now that I’m over a decade into my training as a professional scientist, however, I’m finally beginning to notice the elegance behind Hamming’s words. With this talk, I came to realize, he’s capturing a crucial truth: in many fields, including research science, the path to becoming excellent is messy and ambiguous.