I don’t have any inside information about what exactly prompted the publication of these pieces, but I don’t think it’s unusual for practicing scientists to have some idea of what’s possible if things go very, very right with their research. They’re often wrong, of course, and important discoveries are often important precisely because of unforeseen ramifications. The Acc. Chem. Res. papers are just speculations about potentially awesome destinations for existing lines of research.
I think that the resistance to Hamming’s line of questioning came about because (a) the criticism was coming from an outsider, and (b) it’s kind of a bait-and-switch to ask someone what the most important problem in their field is and then laugh at them when they don’t immediately say “the thing I’m working on right now”. I’d be ticked off if someone did that to me, especially if I didn’t know them well beforehand.
I don’t have any inside information about what exactly prompted the publication of these pieces, but I don’t think it’s unusual for practicing scientists to have some idea of what’s possible if things go very, very right with their research. They’re often wrong, of course, and important discoveries are often important precisely because of unforeseen ramifications. The Acc. Chem. Res. papers are just speculations about potentially awesome destinations for existing lines of research.
I think that the resistance to Hamming’s line of questioning came about because (a) the criticism was coming from an outsider, and (b) it’s kind of a bait-and-switch to ask someone what the most important problem in their field is and then laugh at them when they don’t immediately say “the thing I’m working on right now”. I’d be ticked off if someone did that to me, especially if I didn’t know them well beforehand.