21st Century Engineering by Anirudh Dhebar

November 2025

Those who do – and those who might have done (Part 2)

In October, I offered a summary of “how to do it” advice from Bell Labs mathematician Richard Hamming from his 1986 talk “Richard Hamming: You and Your Research” (link.iise.org/iseoct2025_dhebar). After he dispensed with “how you do it,” he turned his attention to the question: “Why do so many of the people who have great promise, fail?” It is to his answer that we turn.


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