A groundbreaking treatise by one of the great mathematicians of our time, who argues that highly effective thinking can be learned. What spurs on and inspires a great idea? Can we train ourselves to think in a way that will enable world-changing understandings and insights to emerge? Richard Hamming said we can, and first inspired a generation of engineers, scientists, and researchers in 1986 with "You and Your Research," an electrifying sermon on why some scientists do great work, why most don't, why he did, and why you should, too. The Art of Doing Science and Engineering is the full expression of what "You and Your Research" outlined. It's a book about thinking; more specifically, a style of thinking by which great ideas are conceived. The book is filled with stories of great people performing mighty deeds––but they are not meant to simply be admired. Instead, they are to be aspired to, learned from, and surpassed. Hamming consistently returns to Shannon’s information theory, Einstein’s relativity, Grace Hopper’s work on high-level programming, Kaiser’s work on digital fillers, and his own error-correcting codes. He also recounts a number of his spectacular failures as clear examples of what to avoid. Originally published in 1996 and adapted from a course that Hamming taught at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School, this edition includes an all-new foreword by designer, engineer, and founder of Dynamicland Bret Victor, and more than 70 redrawn graphs and charts. The Art of Doing Science and Engineering is a reminder that a childlike capacity for learning and creativity are accessible to everyone. Hamming was as much a teacher as a scientist, and having spent a lifetime forming and confirming a theory of great people, he prepares the next generation for even greater greatness.

A classic examination of how engineers think and feel about their profession and its philosophy. “A useful read for engineers given to self-scrutiny, and a stimulating one for the layman interested in the ancient schism between machines and men’s souls.” —Time Humans have always sought to change their environment, building houses, monuments, temples, and roads. In the process, they have remade the fabric of the world into newly functional objects that are also works of art to be admired. Now as engineering plays an increasingly important role in the world while coming under attack for all manner of sins, one must wonder about the nature of the engineering experience in our time. In this, the second edition of his popular Existential Pleasures of Engineering, Samuel Florman perceptively explores how engineers think and feel about their profession. Dispelling the myth that engineering is cold and passionless, Florman celebrates it as something vital and alive. He views engineering as a response to some of our deepest impulses, rich in spiritual and sensual rewards. Opposing the “antitechnology” stance, Florman brilliantly emerges with a more practical, creative, and fun philosophy of engineering that boasts pride in his craft. First published in 1976, this classic book is essential reading for anyone curious about what wonders we have wrought. “Gracefully written . . . refreshing and highly infectious enthusiasm . . . imaginatively engineered.” —The New York Times Book Review

Tools to make hard problems easier to solve. In this book, Sanjoy Mahajan shows us that the way to master complexity is through insight rather than precision. Precision can overwhelm us with information, whereas insight connects seemingly disparate pieces of information into a simple picture. Unlike computers, humans depend on insight. Based on the author's fifteen years of teaching at MIT, Cambridge University, and Olin College, The Art of Insight in Science and Engineering shows us how to build insight and find understanding, giving readers tools to help them solve any problem in science and engineering. To master complexity, we can organize it or discard it. The Art of Insight in Science and Engineering first teaches the tools for organizing complexity, then distinguishes the two paths for discarding complexity: with and without loss of information. Questions and problems throughout the text help readers master and apply these groups of tools. Armed with this three-part toolchest, and without complicated mathematics, readers can estimate the flight range of birds and planes and the strength of chemical bonds, understand the physics of pianos and xylophones, and explain why skies are blue and sunsets are red. The Art of Insight in Science and Engineering will appear in print and online under a Creative Commons Noncommercial Share Alike license.

Offering accessible and nuanced coverage, Richard W. Hamming discusses theories of probability with unique clarity and depth. Topics covered include the basic philosophical assumptions, the nature of stochastic methods, and Shannon entropy. One of the best introductions to the topic, The Art of Probability is filled with unique insights and tricks worth knowing.

"This book is appropriate for an applied numerical analysis course for upper-level undergraduate and graduate students as well as computer science students. Actual programming is not covered, but an extensive range of topics includes round-off and function evaluation, real zeros of a function, integration, ordinary differential equations, optimization, orthogonal functions, Fourier series, and much more. 1989 edition"--Provided by publisher.

Focusing on both theory and practical applications, this volume combines in a natural way the two major aspects of information representation--representation for storage (coding theory) and representation for transmission (information theory).

Today, software engineers need to know not only how to program effectively but also how to develop proper engineering practices to make their codebase sustainable and healthy. This book emphasizes this difference between programming and software engineering. How can software engineers manage a living codebase that evolves and responds to changing requirements and demands over the length of its life? Based on their experience at Google, software engineers Titus Winters and Hyrum Wright, along with technical writer Tom Manshreck, present a candid and insightful look at how some of the worldâ??s leading practitioners construct and maintain software. This book covers Googleâ??s unique engineering culture, processes, and tools and how these aspects contribute to the effectiveness of an engineering organization. Youâ??ll explore three fundamental principles that software organizations should keep in mind when designing, architecting, writing, and maintaining code: How time affects the sustainability of software and how to make your code resilient over time How scale affects the viability of software practices within an engineering organization What trade-offs a typical engineer needs to make when evaluating design and development decisions

In this insightful and incisive essay, Eugene Ferguson demonstrates that good engineering is as much a matter of intuition and nonverbal thinking as of equations and computation. He argues that a system of engineering education that ignores nonverbal thinking will produce engineers who are dangerously ignorant of the many ways in which the real world differs from the mathematical models constructed in academic minds.

Digital signals occur in an increasing number of applications: in telephone communications; in radio, television, and stereo sound systems; and in spacecraft transmissions, to name just a few. This introductory text examines digital filtering, the processes of smoothing, predicting, differentiating, integrating, and separating signals, as well as the removal of noise from a signal. The processes bear particular relevance to computer applications, one of the focuses of this book. Readers will find Hamming's analysis accessible and engaging, in recognition of the fact that many people with the strongest need for an understanding of digital filtering do not have a strong background in mathematics or electrical engineering. Thus, this book assumes only a knowledge of calculus and a smattering of statistics (reviewed in the text). Adopting the simplest, most direct mathematical tools, the author concentrates on linear signal processing; the main exceptions are the examination of round-off effects and a brief mention of Kalman filters. This updated edition includes more material on the z-transform as well as additional examples and exercises for further reinforcement of each chapter's content. The result is an accessible, highly useful resource for the broad range of people working in the field of digital signal processing.