Editing Richard Hamming (section)

== Later life ==
Hamming served as president of the [[Association for Computing Machinery]] from 1958 to 1960.{{sfn|Morgan|1998|p=972}} In 1960, he predicted that one day half of the Bell Labs budget would be spent on computing. None of his colleagues thought that it would ever be so high, but his forecast  actually proved to be too low.{{sfn|Morgan|1998|p=977}} His philosophy on scientific computing appeared as the motto of his ''Numerical Methods for Scientists and Engineers'' (1962): {{blockquote|The purpose of computing is insight, not numbers.{{sfn|Hamming|1962|pp=vii, 276, 395}} }}

In later life, Hamming became interested in teaching. Between 1960 and 1976, when he left Bell Labs, he held visiting or adjunct professorships at [[Stanford University]], [[Stevens Institute of Technology]], the [[City College of New York]], the [[University of California at Irvine]] and [[Princeton University]].{{Sfnm|1a1=Carnes|1y=2005|1p=220–221|2a1=Tveito|2a2=Bruaset|2a3=Lysne|2y=2009|2p=59}} As a Young Turk, Hamming had resented older scientists who had used up space and resources that would have been put to much better use by the young Turks. Looking at a commemorative poster of the Bell Labs' valued achievements, he noted that he had worked on or been associated with nearly all of those listed in the first half of his career at Bell Labs, but none in the second. He therefore resolved to retire in 1976, after thirty years.<ref name="IEEE" />

In 1976 he moved to the [[Naval Postgraduate School]] in [[Monterey, California]], where he worked as an [[adjunct professor]] and [[senior lecturer]] in [[computer science]].{{sfn|Carnes|2005|pp=220–221}} He gave up research, and concentrated on teaching and writing books.<ref name="ACM" /> He noted that:
{{blockquote|The way mathematics is currently taught it is exceedingly dull. In the calculus book we are currently using on my campus, I found no single problem whose answer I felt the student would care about! The problems in the text have the dignity of solving a crossword puzzle – hard to be sure, but the result is of no significance in life.<ref name="ACM" /> }}
Hamming attempted to rectify the situation with a new text, ''Methods of Mathematics Applied to Calculus, Probability, and Statistics'' (1985).<ref name="ACM" /> In 1993, he remarked that "when I left BTL, I knew that that was the end of my scientific career. When I retire from here, in another sense, it's really the end."<ref name="IEEE" /> And so it proved. He became [[Professor Emeritus]] in June 1997,<ref name="obit">{{cite news |url=http://www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/Obits2/Hamming_NYTimes.html |newspaper=[[The New York Times]] |last=Fisher |first=Lawrence |date=January 11, 1998 |title=Richard Hamming, 82, Dies; Pioneer in Digital Technology |access-date=August 30, 2014 }}</ref> and delivered his last lecture in December 1997, just a few weeks before his death from a heart attack on January 7, 1998.{{sfn|Morgan|1998|p=972}} He was survived by his wife Wanda.<ref name="obit" />

Hamming's final recorded lecture series<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6RujIChTIUawQ7WLCoogGA |title=Learning to Learn: The Art of Doing Science and Engineering lecture videos |publisher= [[Naval Postgraduate School]], YouTube |access-date=July 31, 2022}}</ref> is maintained by [[Naval Postgraduate School]] along with ongoing work<ref>{{cite web |url=https://hamming.nps.edu |title= Hamming Resources at NPS |publisher=[[Naval Postgraduate School]] |access-date=July 31, 2022}}</ref> that preserves his insights and extends his legacy.