Editing Richard Hamming (section)

== Early life ==
Hamming was born in Chicago, Illinois, on February 11, 1915,<ref name="IEEE">{{cite web |url=http://computer.org/computer-pioneers/hamming.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140903102828/https://www.computer.org/computer-pioneers/hamming.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=September 3, 2014 |title=Computer Pioneers – Richard Wesley Hamming |publisher=[[IEEE Computer Society]] |access-date=August 30, 2014}}</ref> the son of Richard J. Hamming, a credit manager, and Mabel G. Redfield.{{sfn|Carnes|2005|pp=220–221}} His father was [[Dutch people|Dutch]], and his mother was a [[Mayflower]] descendant.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=H. Loomis |first1=Herschel |url=https://nap.nationalacademies.org/read/10403/chapter/23 |title=Memorial Tributes: Volume 10 |last2=S. Potter |first2=David |publisher=[[National Academies Press]] |year=2002 |language=en |chapter=Richard W. Hamming|doi=10.17226/10403 |isbn=978-0-309-08457-4 }}</ref> He grew up in Chicago, where he attended [[Crane High School (Chicago)|Crane Technical High School]] and [[Malcolm X College|Crane Junior College]].{{sfn|Carnes|2005|pp=220–221}}

Hamming initially wanted to study engineering, but money was scarce during the [[Great Depression]], and the only scholarship offer he received came from the [[University of Chicago]], which had no engineering school. Instead, he became a science student, majoring in mathematics,<ref name="ACM">{{cite web |url=http://amturing.acm.org/award_winners/hamming_1000652.cfm |title=Richard W. Hamming – A.M. Turing Award Winner |publisher=[[Association for Computing Machinery]] |access-date=August 30, 2014}}</ref> and received his Bachelor of Science degree in 1937.<ref name="IEEE" /> He later considered this a fortunate turn of events. "As an engineer," he said, "I would have been the guy going down manholes instead of having the excitement of frontier research work."<ref name="IEEE" />

He went on to earn a Master of Arts degree from the [[University of Nebraska]] in 1939, and then entered the [[University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign]], where he wrote his doctoral thesis on ''Some Problems in the Boundary Value Theory of Linear Differential Equations'' under the supervision of [[Waldemar Trjitzinsky]].<ref name="ACM" /> His thesis was an extension of Trjitzinsky's work in that area. He looked at [[Green's function]] and further developed [[Jacob Tamarkin]]'s methods for obtaining [[Characteristic equation (calculus)|characteristic]] solutions.<ref name="St Andrews">{{cite web |url=http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Hamming.html |title=Hamming biography |publisher=[[University of St Andrews]] |access-date=August 30, 2014}}</ref> While he was a graduate student, he discovered and read [[George Boole]]'s  ''[[The Laws of Thought]]''.{{sfn|Hamming|1998|p=643}}

The University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign awarded Hamming his Doctor of Philosophy in 1942, and he became an instructor in mathematics there. He married Wanda Little, a fellow student, on September 5, 1942,<ref name="ACM" /> immediately after she was awarded her own Master of Arts in English literature. They would remain married until his death, and had no children.{{sfn|Carnes|2005|pp=220–221}} In 1944, he became an assistant professor at the [[J.B. Speed School of Engineering|J.B. Speed Scientific School]] at the [[University of Louisville]] in [[Louisville, Kentucky]].<ref name="ACM" />