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
strong thinking ideas
I think it is the general rule that the originator of a new idea is not the most suitable person to develop it, because his fears of something going wrong are really too strong... At age 69.
ideas numbers fundamentals
Renormalization is just a stop-gap procedure. There must be some fundamental change in our ideas, probably a change just as fundamental as the passage from Bohr's orbit theory to quantum mechanics. When you get a number turning out to be infinite which ought to be finite, you should admit that there is something wrong with your equations, and not hope that you can get a good theory just by doctoring up that number.
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.
greatness ideas research
The measure of greatness in a scientific idea is the extent to which it stimulates thought and opens up new lines of research.
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.
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.
book math physics
A book on the new physics, if not purely descriptive of experimental work, must essentially be mathematical.
country different culture
It is quite clear that beauty does depend on one's culture and upbringing for certain kinds of beauty, pictures, literature, poetry and so on...But mathematical beauty is of a rather different kind. I should say perhaps it is of a completely different kind and transcends these personal factors. It is the same in all countries and at all periods of time.
chemistry physics mechanic
Quantum mechanics has explained all of chemistry and most of physics.
math practice data
The physicist, in his study of natural phenomena, has two methods of making progress: (1) the method of experiment and observation, and (2) the method of mathematical reasoning. The former is just the collection of selected data; the latter enables one to infer results about experiments that have not been performed. There is no logical reason why the second method should be possible at all, but one has found in practice that it does work and meets with reasonable success.
communication people speak
There are always more people who prefer to speak than to listen.
needs reason-why example
Theoretical physicists accept the need for mathematical beauty as an act of faith... For example, the main reason why the theory of relativity is so universally accepted is its mathematical beauty.
simple two way
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.
views mathematical-equations progress
It seems that if one is working from the point of view of getting beauty in one's equations, and if one has really a sound insight, one is on a sure line of progress