Paul Dirac
Paul Dirac
Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac OM FRSwas an English theoretical physicist who made fundamental contributions to the early development of both quantum mechanics and quantum electrodynamics. He was the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge, a member of the Center for Theoretical Studies, University of Miami, and spent the last decade of his life at Florida State University...
ProfessionScientist
Date of Birth8 August 1902
Paul Dirac quotes about
discrete electric field lines physical picture treated
The electric field in this picture from discrete Faraday lines of force, which are to be treated as physical things, like strings.
bare cannot electron imagine piece since string theory
In such a theory a bare electron would be inconceivable, since one cannot imagine the end of a piece of string without having the string.
beautiful god creating
God used beautiful mathematics in creating the world.
if-there-is-a-god mathematician ifs
If there is a God, he's a great mathematician.
mathematical-equations important fit
It is more important to have beauty in one's equations than to have them fit experiment.
math limits fields
Mathematics is the tool specially suited for dealing with abstract concepts of any kind and there is no limit to its power in this field.
science biographies rooms
When [Erwin Schrödinger] went to the Solvay conferences in Brussels, he would walk from the station to the hotel where the delegates stayed, carrying all his luggage in a rucksack and looking so like a tramp that it needed a great deal of argument at the reception desk before he could claim a room.
data ugly fit
A theory with mathematical beauty is more likely to be correct than an ugly one that fits some experimental data.
law too-much chemistry
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.
writing men poetry
I do not see how a man can work on the frontiers of physics and write poetry at the same time. They are in opposition. In science you want to say something that nobody knew before, in words which everyone can understand. In poetry you are bound to say ... something that everyone knows already in words that nobody can understand. Commenting to him about the poetry J. Robert Oppenheimer wrote.
order mathematics used
One could perhaps describe the situation by saying that God is a mathematician of a very high order, and He used very advanced mathematics in constructing the universe
law effort simplicity
The research worker, in his efforts to express the fundamental laws of Nature in mathematical form, should strive mainly for mathematical beauty. He should take simplicity into consideration in a subordinate way to beauty ... It often happens that the requirements of simplicity and beauty are the same, but where they clash, the latter must take precedence.
science understanding equations
I consider that I understand an equation when I can predict the properties of its solutions, without actually solving it.
sunday ideas long
I found the best ideas usually came, not when one was actively striving for them, but when one was in a more relaxed state… I used to take long solitary walks on Sundays, during which I tended to review the current situation in a leisurely way. Such occasions often proved fruitful, even though (or perhaps, because) the primary purpose of the walk was relaxation and not research.