World of Computer Science on Richard Wesley Hamming
Richard Wesley Hamming is best known for his work on error-detecting and error-correcting codes, which are now called Hamming codes. He also contributed a number of developments to programming languages in general and work on numerical analysis and the Hamming spectral window (used to smooth data before Fourier analysis is carried out).
Richard Wesley Hamming was born in Chicago in 1915. His initial schooling was Chicago-based and he graduated from the University of Chicago in 1937 with a B.S. in mathematics. Originally Hamming had wanted to study engineering but the only university offering him a scholarship was the University of Chicago, which did not have an engineering department, so Hamming chose mathematics instead. Hamming then moved to the University of Nebraska where he was awarded an M.A. in mathematics in 1939. Moving back to the Chicago area he attended the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where he gained a Ph.D. in 1942; this was also in mathematics, with his doctoral thesis being titled Some Problems in the Boundary Value Theory of Linear Differential Equations. Hamming was briefly involved in teaching mathematics but in 1945 he joined the Manhattan Project, based at Los Alamos, here he managed the computer department for the group developing the first atomic bomb. When the Manhattan Project ended Hamming remained behind for six months to try to solve some questions he had about the project. He felt that the bombs had worked much better than the computer predictions had allowed for and he eventually traced the problem to the repetition of a feedback loop that was being used with large scale computations. In 1946 Hamming joined Bell Telephone in New Jersey, where he stayed until 1976. At Bell Hamming was initially employed to work on elasticity theory but he found himself drawn to computers. Hamming eventually worked with Claude Shannon, the recognized father of information sciences. Hamming worked on error-detecting and error-correcting codes, and in 1950 he published his, and the world's, first paper on the subject, thus forming a new branch within information theory called Hamming codes. Hamming codes are used in computer design and are fundamental to coding theory. Hamming codes allow computers to recognize and fix their own mistakes with regard to packing problems. This work was originally prompted by a failure in a computer that had been running calculations over a weekend--Hamming arrived on Monday morning expecting to see the results but found that the computer had ground to a halt very early in the calculation. He reasoned that if the computer could recognize an error then it could also correct it. He achieved this using his mathematical skills--he utilized parity checking to search for errors. Hamming added a block of code that would check each of the bits, be able to find up to two errors in a string, and, most importantly, the computer could then fix at least one of the bad bits. This made calculations more accurate and reliable.
In 1956 Hamming worked on the IBM 650, which led to various developments in programming languages, particularly in their coding. Many of Hemming's innovations can be seen in today's programming languages. In 1976 after retiring from Bell, Hamming became professor of computer science at the Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, California, where he remained until his death in 1998. During his time there Hamming carried out work on digital filters, gaining a patent on what is now known as the Hamming window--a method of examining a small region of a signal with minimal leakage from other parts of the signal. This filter has been adopted as a vital part of the digital design field.
Throughout his life Hamming was given great recognition for his work. He was made a fellow of the IEEE in 1968 and received the Turing prize from the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) in the same year. Subsequently the IEEE awarded Hamming the Emanuel R. Piore Award in 1979 and a medal in 1988 (the citation for this medal was for exceptional contributions to information science and systems). This award has since been renamed the Richard W. Hamming medal, and it carries a $10,000 prize. In 1996 Hamming was awarded the Eduard Rheim Award for Achievement in Technology, which carried a cash award of $130,000. Again this award was given in recognition of his work on error-correcting codes. Hamming will always be remembered for his fundamental work on the Hamming codes. These codes are still in use today to enhance the reliability of most devices containing a microchip (everything from video recorders to CD players and microwave ovens). Hamming died in 1998 of a heart attack, one month short of his 83rd birthday. During his lifetime he authored over a dozen books and nearly 80 scientific papers.
This is the complete article, containing 787 words
(approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page).
