Historical Figure
Paul Dirac
1902–1984
British theoretical physicist (1902–1984)
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Biography
Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac was a British theoretical physicist who is considered to be one of the founders of quantum mechanics. Dirac laid the foundations for both quantum electrodynamics and quantum field theory, coining the former term. He was the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge from 1932 to 1969, and a professor of physics at Florida State University from 1970 to 1984. Dirac shared the 1933 Nobel Prize in Physics with Erwin Schrödinger "for the discovery of new productive forms of atomic theory."
In Their Own Words (5)
A good deal of my research work in physics has consisted in not setting out to solve some particular problems, but simply examining mathematical quantities of a kind that physicists use and trying to get them together in an interesting way regardless of any application that the work may have. It is simply a search for pretty mathematics. It may turn out later that the work does have an application. Then one has had good luck.
P.A.M. Dirac, "Pretty Mathematics," International Journal of Theoretical Physics, Vol. 21, Issue 8–9, August 1982, p. 603 , 1982
It was a good description to say that it was a game, a very interesting game one could play. Whenever one solved one of the little problems, one could write a paper about it. It was very easy in those days for any second-rate physicist to do first-rate work. There has not been such a glorious time since then.
Describing the state of quantum mechanics in the 1920s. From Directions in Physics (New York: John Wiley, 1978), p. 7. , 1978
I don't suppose that applies so much to other physicists; I think it’s a peculiarity of myself that I like to play about with equations, just looking for beautiful mathematical relations which maybe don’t have any physical meaning at all. Sometimes they do.
Interview with Dr. P. A. M. Dirac by Thomas S. Kuhn at Dirac's home, Cambridge, England, May 7, 1963 , 1963
If there is no complete agreement between the results of one's work and the experiment, one should not allow oneself to be too discouraged.
"The Evolution of the Physicist's Picture of Nature," Scientific American (May, 1963) , 1963
The underlying physical laws necessary for the mathematical theory of a large part of physics and the whole of chemistry are thus completely known, and the difficulty is only that the exact application of these laws leads to equations much too complicated to be soluble. It therefore becomes desirable that approximate practical methods of applying quantum mechanics should be developed, which can lead to an explanation of the main features of complex atomic systems without too much computation.
Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series A, Containing Papers of a Mathematical and Physical Character, Vol. 123, No. 792 (6 April 1929) , 1929
Timeline
The story of Paul Dirac, told in moments.
Publishes the Dirac equation at 25. It unifies quantum mechanics and special relativity, and predicts the existence of antimatter. No experiment has ever detected antimatter before. Most physicists think it can't exist.
Carl Anderson detects the positron in a cloud chamber, confirming Dirac's 1928 prediction. A particle with the electron's mass but opposite charge. Antimatter is real. Dirac had written it into existence with mathematics.
Shares the Nobel Prize in Physics with Erwin Schrodinger. He's 31, the youngest theorist to win the prize. He considers declining it because he dislikes publicity. A colleague convinces him that refusing would generate even more attention.
Marries Margit Wigner, sister of physicist Eugene Wigner. Colleagues are stunned. Niels Bohr reportedly says: "Dirac, what have you done? You have ruined physics. You were the only one who could think without a wife."
Dies in Tallahassee, Florida, where he's been a professor at Florida State University since 1971. He's 82. His gravestone in Tallahassee's Roselawn Cemetery reads the Dirac equation. A memorial plaque in Westminster Abbey sits near Newton's tomb.
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