Newsgroups: comp.parallel,comp.sys.super,comp.arch,alt.folklore.computers
From: eugene@cse.ucsc.edu (Eugene Miya)
Subject: Richard Hamming RIP
Organization: UC Santa Cruz CIS/CE
Date: 8 Jan 1998 10:43:32 GMT
Message-ID: <692akk$h32@darkstar.ucsc.edu>

Richard Hamming died of a heart attack at his home in Monterey.

Computing has suffered a great loss.

I first took a class in coding theory about 1976, and by chance through
a colleague at the Naval Post Grad School, I had a chance to meet Dick Hamming
by 1978.  I had a couple of his books for classes.  Over the years, I
ran a seminar series at Ames at the request of George Michael called
Hamming's Alternate Musing (HAM) on Fridays.  Dick was the first speaker
invited.  These are very minor things compared to his time at LASL and
Bell Labs, but that's my portion of his life and how it related to the
Valley (for the times I posted his seminars to ba.seminars).

Hamming liked to say that the NPS had some of the most dedicated
students in the world.  He prided himself in "teaching future admirals."
He felt that calculus was the best way to teach the kind of logical
thinking needed by those admirals and others.

Over the years, Dick faded, unjustly in my opinion, from the computing scene.
We tried to keep his brain active and thinking.


He will be sorely missed.