The strangest man paul dirac
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The Strangest Man
New Scientist
@stephenfry
Oliver Sacks
Peter Higgs
The Times
Martin Rees
Louisa Gilder
NYT
The Hidden Life of Paul Dirac, Quantum Genius
Paul Dirac () was the first truly modern theoretical physicist. After a desperately unhappy childhood in Bristol, UK, his training in engineering and mathematics prepared him to co-discover quantum theory, the most revolutionary scientific theory of the twentieth century. A legendary introvert, his golden streak in research from included his successful prediction of anti-matter which won him a Nobel Prize and brilliant speculations on the existence of magnetic monopoles. In , he married Manci Balazs, in many ways his polar opposite &#; warm, friendly and unscientific. He later became an apostle of mathematical beauty and its importance to fundamental physics &#; the words on his gravestone are ‘Because God made it that way&#;’.
1.‘I never had a childhood’
Dira
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The Strangest Man: The Hidden Life of Paul Dirac, Mystic of the Atom
Scientific method, like human nature, is a term of approval or disapproval not a description of anything real. We use such terms as if we knew what they mean; but they are largely without any definite content. Their primary function is one of propaganda, sometimes professional, often religious, always tendentious. Taking such terms seriously - except to dismiss them - is usually bad for human beings and other living things.
This aptly-titled biography of the prominent 20th century British scientist, Paul Dirac, is an illustration of the point. Dirac was a bona fide eccentric, a nerd, a geek, probably autistic, someone who just didn’t fit wherever he found himself. He was also a genius who was the first to formulate the relativistic mathematics of quantum mechanics. How he did this was hardly methodical and can only be called scientific in retrospect.
Dirac was initially trai
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The Strangest Man
When I was in Edinburgh I picked up a copy of Graham Farmelo&#;s new biography of Dirac. It&#;s entitled The Strangest Man: The Hidden Life of Paul Dirac, Quantum Genius, and is not yet available in the US. I read the book on the plane trip back to New York and very much enjoyed it. While I&#;ve read a large number of treatments of the history and personalities involved in the birth of quantum mechanics, this one is definitely the best in terms of detail and insight into the remarkable character of Paul Dirac. I gather that Farmelo had access to many of Dirac&#;s personal papers, and he uses these well to provide a sensitive, in-depth portrait of a man who often is reduced to a bit of a caricature.
The book is less of a scientific biography than the other book about Dirac I know of, Helge Kragh&#;s Dirac, A Scientific Biography, and emphasizes more the development of Dirac&#;s personality and the story of his relations with others, especially with his father, hi