Paul Dirac: The Quiet Genius Died 30 Years Ago | Hacker News Reader

Paul Dirac: The Quiet Genius Died 30 Years Ago

blog.lindau-nobel.org

54 pointsMaysonL14 comments

One of my favorite references to him is a recommendation[1] written by Oppenheimer about Feynman. The line was: "He's a second Dirac, only this time human."

Edit: to be fair Oppenheimer was quoting Wigner... Dirac went on to marry Wigner's sister.

[1] http://www.lettersofnote.com/2009/12/he-is-second-dirac-only...

Dirac once introduced his wife by saying, "Allow me to present Wigner's sister, who is now my wife."

There is a great talk on Dirac by Graham Farmelo on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfYon2WdR40

Graham Farmelo also wrote The Strangest Man: The Hidden Life of Paul Dirac, Mystic of the Atom [0] which I thoroughly enjoyed reading. It's not very technical, which is sometimes a nice attribute in these sorts of biographies, but it covers the science as it develops, if a little too briefly.

[0] http://www.amazon.com/The-Strangest-Man-Hidden-Mystic/dp/046...

> covers the science as it develops, if a little too briefly.

Most biographies of scientists focus on their character and personal life rather their work.

There are very few technical biographies, even of highly technical people. Readers won't understand the work of the scientist any better after reading through one of them.

Quantum Man[0] by Lawrence Krauss specifically aims to be a solution to this regarding Richard Feynman. And even in this case the exposition needs to be so terse that only the highly technical reader will fully understand most aspects of Feynman's work in the correct context.

Do you know of any biography of Dirac that edges on "if a little too technical"? I would love to read that.

[0] http://www.amazon.com/Quantum-Man-Richard-Feynmans-Discoveri...

A very good resource are Thomas Kuhn's interviews with Dirac [1]. He talked about his childhood (they barely spoke anything at home, because they had to talk in French...), his university studies and his findings. It is quite long but worth it!

[1] http://www.aip.org/history/ohilist/4575_1.html

This is great material! I wonder if the recordings are available somewhere on-line to the public.

As they have a lot of material of other important physicists too, I would be very interested. They have some voice clips online, so I hope they will release the full interviews one day.

"Dirac: A Scientific Biography" provides a more technical overview than Farmelo's book (not to detract from Farmelo's book which is very well written and provides a great deal of depth about Dirac the individual).

http://www.amazon.com/Dirac-Scientific-Biography-Helge-Kragh...

Jagdish Mehra's The Beat of a Different Drum: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman is even more technical than Krauss and is worth checking out if you really want to understand his scientific contributions.

It's worth noting this book is available to read for free on Kindle Unlimited.

And actual physics talks by Dirac himself on YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwYs8tTLZ24

The VHS wonkiness sort of adds to the otherworldly aspect.

"Paul Dirac apparently had a reserved and taciturn nature. There are numerous accounts how he didn’t mind remaining silent in company. And if asked a question, his answer would be short and nothing but the literal truth – sometimes the asker had to wait up to thirty minutes for it."

This is what completes genius.

>>This is what completes genius.

Not it doesn't. People are different. Some more different than others. Frankly, it sounds like an autistic person is being described.

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