Graham Farmelo
More books by Graham Farmelo…
“During the meeting in Delhi with Dirac on 12 January 1955, Nehru asked him if he had any recommendations for the future of the new republic of India. After his usual reflective pause, Dirac replied: ¡®A common language, preferably English. Peace with Pakistan. The metric system.”
― The Strangest Man: The Hidden Life of Paul Dirac, Quantum Genius
― The Strangest Man: The Hidden Life of Paul Dirac, Quantum Genius
“When Dirac was an old man, younger physicists often asked him how he felt when he discovered the [Dirac] equation. From his replies, it seems that he alternated between ecstasy and fear: although elated to have solved his problem so neatly, he worried that he would be the latest victim of the 'great tragedy of science' described in 1870 by Thomas Huxley; 'the slaying of a beautiful theory by an ugly fact'. Dirac later confessed that his dread of such an outcome was so intense that he was 'too scared' to use it to make detailed predictions of the energy levels of atomic hydrogen - a test that he knew it had to pass. He did an approximate version of the calculation and showed that there was acceptable agreement but did not go on to risk failure by subjecting his theory to a more rigorous examination.”
― The Strangest Man: The Hidden Life of Paul Dirac, Mystic of the Atom
― The Strangest Man: The Hidden Life of Paul Dirac, Mystic of the Atom
“I have heard experimental physicist complain sotto voce that some of the best theoreticians have largely stopped doing physics and started to indulge in what is sometimes described as 'mathematical masturbation'.”
― The Universe Speaks in Numbers: How Modern Maths Reveals Nature's Deepest Secrets
― The Universe Speaks in Numbers: How Modern Maths Reveals Nature's Deepest Secrets
Topics Mentioning This Author
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