La Vanguardia: Paul Dirac, el hombre de la ecuación antimateria
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Paul Dirac
Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac was an English 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 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 1…
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science · British physicist (1902–1984) · mathematician · theoretical physicist · professor · physicist · scientist · academic · educator · teacher · engineer · also Paul Dirac, Paul A M Dirac, P A M Dirac, P. A. M. Dirac, Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac, Dirac
Born 8 August 1902 · Died 20 October 1984 · Q47480
99 published statements · 0 followers
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2026· 5 entries
Ecoticias: Paul Dirac, premio Nobel de Física, sobre el universo: «Dios es un genio matemático que utilizó matemáticas muy avanzadas para construir el universo»
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Cronista: Paul Dirac, premio Nobel de Física: “Dios es un genio matemático que utilizó matemáticas muy avanzadas para construir el universo”
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“I believe I got these [matrices] independently of Pauli and possibly Pauli got these independently of me.”
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“I feel much freer now, and I am my own man.”
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2025· 1 entry
American Physical Society: Quantum Milestones, 1928: The Dirac Equation Unifies Quantum Mechanics and Special Relativity
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2024· 1 entry
Phys.org: News on paul dirac
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2010· 2 entries
Scientific American: Paul Dirac: "The Strangest Man" of Science, Part 2
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“P.A.M. Dirac and the Discovery of Quantum Mechanics”
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2009· 2 entries
Ars Technica: Physicist Paul Dirac biography: The Strangest Man
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New Scientist: Review: The hidden life of Paul Dirac by Graham Farmelo
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1997· 1 entry
To reward outstanding work in theoretical physics by FSU researchers
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1995· 1 entry
Stephen Hawking stated that "Dirac has done more than anyone this century, with the exception of Einstein, to advance physics and change our picture of the universe
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1987· 2 entries
Abdus Salam declared that "Dirac was undoubtedly one of the greatest physicists of this or any century
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“P. A. M. Dirac, The inadequacies of quantum field theory, in Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac, B. N. Kursunoglu and E. P. Wigner (Cambridge University, Cambridge, 1987) p. 194.”
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1984· 25 entries
Died 1984-10-20.
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“In science one tries to tell people, in such a way as to be understood by everyone, something that no one ever knew before. But in the case of poetry, it's the exact opposite!”
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“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.”
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“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.”
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“With my assumption... life need never end. There is no decisive argument for deciding between [certain] assumptions. I prefer the one that allows the possibility of endless life. One may hope that some day the question will be decided by direct observation.”
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“Anche Dirac ha una propria religione che al primo comandamento recita: Dio non esiste, ma Dirac è il suo profeta. (Wolfgang Pauli)”
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“Vi sono grandi difficoltà connesse alla meccanica quantistica attuali. È quanto di meglio si possa fare, ma non si deve supporre che essa sopravviverà indefinitamente in futuro. Ritengo molto probabile che in qualche tempo futuro avremo una meccanica quantistica migliorata in cui ci sarà un ritorno al determinismo, che giustificherà il punto di vista di Einstein.”
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“The measure of greatness in a scientific idea is the extent to which it stimulates thought and opens up new lines of research.”
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“I want to emphasize the necessity for a sound mathematical basis for any fundamental physical theory. Any philosophical ideas that one may have play only a subordinate role. Unless such ideas have a mathematical basis they will be ineffective.”
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“Quello che volevo erano enunciazioni che potessero essere espresse in termini di equazioni, e il lavoro di Bohr assai di rado forniva enunciazioni di questo tipo.”
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“(Original engl.: "Each photon interferes only with itself.")”
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“Perché la gente va a ballare? [Heisenberg: «È un piacere ballare, se le ragazze sono carine.»] Ma come fai a saperlo prima, che sono carine?”
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“Siento que la filosofía nunca llevará a descubrimientos importantes. Es solo una forma de hablar de los descubrimientos ya realizados».[I feel that philosophy will never lead to important discoveries. It is just a way of talking about discoveries which have already been made].”
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“La bellezza matematica è una qualità che non può essere definita, non più di quanto la bellezza possa essere definita per l'arte, ma chi studia matematica, di solito, non ha difficoltà ad apprezzarla.”
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“En ciencia uno intenta decir a la gente, en una manera en que todos lo puedan entender, algo que nunca nadie supo antes. La poesía es exactamente lo contrario».[In science one tries to tell people, in such a way as to be understood by everyone, something that no one ever knew before. But in poetry, it's the exact opposite].”
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“Oppenheimer, mi dicono che componi poesie. Non capisco come possa un uomo lavorare alle frontiere della fisica e comporre poesie allo stesso tempo. Le due cose sono in contraddizione. In fisica vuoi dire qualcosa che nessuno sapeva prima in termini che tutti possano capire. In poesia sei costretto a dire cose che tutti già sanno in termini che nessuno capisce.”
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“Me enseñaron en la escuela que nunca debes comenzar una oración sin saber el final».[I was taught at school that you should never start a sentence without knowing the end of it].”
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“[Rivolto a Robert Oppenheimer che leggeva Dante Alighieri] Come puoi occuparti al tempo stesso di fisica e di poesia? In fisica tentiamo di spiegare in termini semplici qualcosa di ignoto. Nella poesia è l'esatto opposto.”
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“eigentlich: Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac”
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“My research work was based in pictures. I needed to visualise things and projective geometry was often most useful e.g. in figuring out how a particular quantity transforms under Lorentz transf[ormation]. When I came to publish the results I suppressed the projective geometry as the results could be expressed more concisely in analytic form.”
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“The aim of science is to make difficult things understandable in a simpler way; the aim of poetry is to state simple things in an incomprehensible way. The two are incompatible.”
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“God used beautiful mathematics in creating the world.”
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“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.”
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“Dirac fu ed è tuttora un tipo di scienziato "torre d'avorio" e, pur se gli piaceva chiacchierare con i colleghi del suo viaggio in oriente o di qualsiasi altro argomento comune, preferiva svolgere le sue ricerche da solo: ma durante le riunioni scientifiche le sue osservazioni erano sempre acute e appropriate. (George Gamow)”
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“I was taught at school never to start a sentence without knowing the end of it.”
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1982· 1 entry
“P.A.M. Dirac, "Pretty Mathematics," International Journal of Theoretical Physics, Vol. 21, Issue 8–9, August 1982, p. 603”
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1979· 1 entry
“The Early Years of Relativity" in Albert Einstein : Historical and Cultural Perspectives : The Centennial Symposium in Jerusalem (1979) edited by Gerald James Holton and Yehuda Elkana, p. 85”
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1978· 2 entries
“The Mathematical Foundations of Quantum Theory (1978)”
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“Describing the state of quantum mechanics in the 1920s. From Directions in Physics (New York: John Wiley, 1978), p. 7.”
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1977· 1 entry
“Recollections of an Exciting Era", in History of Twentieth Century Physics, Proceedings of the International School of Physics Enrico Fermi (New York Academic Press, 1977), pp. 137-138”
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1975· 2 entries
Dirac gave a series of five lectures at the University of New South Wales which were subsequently published as a book, Directions in Physics (1978)
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"because this so-called 'good theory' does involve neglecting infinities which appear in its equations, neglecting them in an arbitrary way
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1973· 1 entry
Awarded Order of Merit (1973).
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1972· 1 entry
“Recollections of an Exciting Era," three lectures given at Varenna, 5 August 1972, quoted in Peter Galison, "The Suppressed Drawing: Paul Dirac's Hidden Geometry", Representations, No. 72 (Autumn, 2000)”
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1971· 1 entry
At a conference meeting, Dirac described the possibilities for scientifically answering the question of God
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1969· 4 entries
Awarded J. Robert Oppenheimer Memorial Prize (1969).
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Dirac was forced to retire from his chair at Cambridge, due to his age (67)
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At the University of Miami deals with the basic aspects of spinors starting with a real Hilbert space formalism
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“Es gibt keinen Gott und Dirac ist sein Prophet." - Wolfgang Pauli, zitiert in W. Heisenberg, Der Teil und das Ganze, 1969, Piper, München, S. 119”
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1968· 2 entries
“From a Life of Physics. Evening Lectures at the International Centre of Theoretical Physics, Trieste, Italy. IAEA, Vienna 1968, p. 32.”
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“The scientific work of Georges Lemaître (1968), P.A.M. Dirac, Commentarii (Pontifical Academy of Sciences), vol 2, 11, pp. 1–18.”
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1966· 1 entry
As the Belfer Graduate School of Science, Monograph Series Number, 3
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1964· 2 entries
Won Helmholtz Medal (1964).
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Published his Lectures on Quantum Mechanics (London: Academic) which deals with constrained dynamics of nonlinear dynamical systems including quantisation of curved spacetime
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1963· 2 entries
“The Evolution of the Physicist's Picture of Nature" in Scientific American (May 1963)”
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“The Evolution of the Physicist's Picture of Nature," Scientific American (May, 1963)”
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1961· 1 entry
“Untitled, Nature (1961) Vol. 192, p. 441, as quoted by Frank J. Tipler, The Physics of Immortality (1994) p. 11. Described as Dirac's Postulate of Eternal Life”
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1959· 2 entries
Noting that the energy of the gravitational field should come in quanta
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Also gave an invited talk on "Energy of the Gravitational Field" at the New York Meeting of the American Physical Society
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1956· 1 entry
Dirac was asked to summarize his philosophy of physics
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1952· 2 entries
Won Copley Medal (1952).
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Won Max Planck Medal (1952).
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1946· 1 entry
Awarded doctor honoris causa from the University of Paris (1946).
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1941· 1 entry
Won Royal Society Bakerian Medal (1941).
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1939· 3 entries
Won Royal Medal (1939).
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“The Relation between Mathematics and Physics (Feb. 6, 1939) Proceedings of the Royal Society (Edinburgh) Vol. 59, 1938-39, Part II, pp. 122-129.”
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Dirac published eleven papers during the period 1939–46.
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1938· 1 entry
Dirac renormalized the mass in the theory of Abraham-Lorentz electron, leading to the Abraham–Lorentz–Dirac force, which is the relativistic-classical electron model; however, this model has solutions that suggest force
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1937· 2 entries
Dirac married Margit Wigner, the sister of physicist Eugene Wigner and a divorcee
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Proposed a speculative cosmological model based on the large numbers hypothesis
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1934· 3 entries
Conceived the Helikon vortex isotope separation process
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By Werner Heisenberg, as a (quantum) field equation accurately describing all elementary matter particles – today quarks and leptons – this Dirac field equation is as central to theoretical physics as the Maxwell, Yang–M
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In Princeton, New Jersey, from their native Hungary and, while at dinner at the Annex Restaurant, met the "lonely-looking man at the next table"
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1933· 3 entries
Awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics — for the discovery of new productive forms of atomic theory.
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Awarded Nobel Prize in Physics (1933).
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Regarding the Lagrangian in quantum mechanics
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1932· 1 entry
Career landmark: Lucasian Professor of Mathematics (1932–1969).
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1931· 2 entries
Dirac proposed that the existence of a single magnetic monopole in the universe would suffice to explain the quantisation of electrical charge
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Which further predicted the existence of antimatter
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1930· 3 entries
Awarded Fellow of the Royal Society (1930).
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Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar attended Dirac's course on quantum mechanics four times, describing it as "just like a piece of music you want to hear over and over again
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Victor Weisskopf and Eugene Wigner published their famous and now standard calculation of spontaneous radiation emission in atomic and molecular physics
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1929· 1 entry
“Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series A, Containing Papers of a Mathematical and Physical Character, Vol. 123, No. 792 (6 April 1929)”
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1928· 1 entry
Building on 2×2 spin matrices which he purported to have discovered independently of Wolfgang Pauli's work on non-relativistic spin systems (Dirac told Abraham Pais, "I believe I got these [matrices] independently of Pau
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1927· 2 entries
“Jedes Photon interferiert nur mit sich selbst." - Grundlegender Satz zum Verständnis von Quantenobjekten, The Principles of Quantum Mechanics, 1927”
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In The Quantum Theory of the Emission and Absorption of Radiation, Dirac developed a quantum treatment of radiation in which the number of light quanta could change through emission and absorption, and derived the correc
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1926· 3 entries
Dirac received a PhD from Cambridge
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Studied at University of Cambridge (1923–1926).
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Writing the first ever thesis on quantum mechanics
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1923· 2 entries
Dirac graduated, once again with first class honours, and received a £140 scholarship from the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research
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Studied at University of Bristol (1918–1923).
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1921· 2 entries
Sat for the entrance examination for St John's College, Cambridge
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And a Bachelor of Arts in Mathematics in 1923
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1902· 1 entry
Born 1902-08-08.
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