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jazzy_daveGraham Farmelo "The Strangest Man: The Hidden Life of Paul Dirac, Quantum Genius" (Faber and Faber)
Dirac was as taciturn as a person could get and not be a mute. His colleagues invented a term called 'a dirac' for the shortest answer possible to a question. He didn't keep a diary and his letters to his parents (postcards) usually contained twenty words or less. Stories abound from his fellow physicists on his lack of communication skills. With this dearth of material to work from, somehow, Farmelo puts together a near five hundred page comprehensive biography that is enlightening. A rabbit out of the hat so to speak.
Dirac was one of the founders of quantum mechanics and became the youngest Nobel winner in physics. Despite his communication problems in spoken language he was concise and literal minded in his writing. His textbook on quantum mechanics has never gone out of print. When Einstein was wrestling with quantum problems, he would often mutter, " where's my Dirac?" His contemporaries respected him but struggled to understand him. He lived in a mathematical world where he sought 'the beauty' of equations. Neils Bohr, who knew and interacted with many eccentric scientists called Dirac the strangest man. There is speculation that Dirac was a high functioning autistic. When his wife was in pursuit of him she quickly found out he was incapable of seeing questions as rhetorical. He would create a table in his replies, number them, and answer each one literally. Some of these are included in the book. It makes for one of the strangest wooing adventures ever. But she did manage to snag him.
Even though the book is about quantum mechanics, there is only about five equations in it and some of them don't even deal with physics. Farmelo is gifted at keeping the subject approachable for the average reader. Of all the books that have covered personalities from the early days of quantum mechanics, Dirac has been the least written about. This biography fills that gap.
Dirac was as taciturn as a person could get and not be a mute. His colleagues invented a term called 'a dirac' for the shortest answer possible to a question. He didn't keep a diary and his letters to his parents (postcards) usually contained twenty words or less. Stories abound from his fellow physicists on his lack of communication skills. With this dearth of material to work from, somehow, Farmelo puts together a near five hundred page comprehensive biography that is enlightening. A rabbit out of the hat so to speak.
Dirac was one of the founders of quantum mechanics and became the youngest Nobel winner in physics. Despite his communication problems in spoken language he was concise and literal minded in his writing. His textbook on quantum mechanics has never gone out of print. When Einstein was wrestling with quantum problems, he would often mutter, " where's my Dirac?" His contemporaries respected him but struggled to understand him. He lived in a mathematical world where he sought 'the beauty' of equations. Neils Bohr, who knew and interacted with many eccentric scientists called Dirac the strangest man. There is speculation that Dirac was a high functioning autistic. When his wife was in pursuit of him she quickly found out he was incapable of seeing questions as rhetorical. He would create a table in his replies, number them, and answer each one literally. Some of these are included in the book. It makes for one of the strangest wooing adventures ever. But she did manage to snag him.
Even though the book is about quantum mechanics, there is only about five equations in it and some of them don't even deal with physics. Farmelo is gifted at keeping the subject approachable for the average reader. Of all the books that have covered personalities from the early days of quantum mechanics, Dirac has been the least written about. This biography fills that gap.
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