hamming

"Now, how did I come to do this study? At Los Alamos I was brought in to run the computing machines which other people had got going, so those scientists and physicists could get back to business. I saw I was a stooge. I saw that although physically I was the same, they were different. And to put the thing bluntly, I was envious. I wanted to know why they were so different from me. I saw Feynman up close. I saw Fermi and Teller. I saw Oppenheimer. I saw Hans Bethe; he was my boss. I saw quite a few very capable people. I became very interested in the difference between those who do and those who
might have done." --http://www.newschooljournal.com/files/NSER03/05-26.pdf