The Strangest Man
The Hidden Life of Paul Dirac, Mystic of the Atom
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- $21.99
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- $21.99
Publisher Description
Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize
The definitive biography of Paul Dirac, the brilliant—and enigmatic—physicist whose foundational work in quantum mechanics revolutionized modern science.
“This biography is a gift.… A thought-provoking meditation on human achievement, limitations, and the relations between the two.” —New York Times Book Review
Paul Dirac was among the great scientific geniuses of the modern age. An admired colleague of Albert Einstein and one of the discoverers of quantum mechanics, the most revolutionary theory of the past century, Dirac also predicted the existence of antimatter—widely regarded as a triumph of twentieth-century physics—and was the youngest theoretician ever to win the Nobel Prize in physics.
Like Dirac’s achievements, his personality is legendary. An extraordinarily reserved loner, relentlessly literal-minded and seemingly devoid of empathy, Dirac was nevertheless an intensely loyal family man, with tastes in the arts that ranged from Beethoven to Cher, from Rembrandt to Mickey Mouse.
Based on previously undiscovered archives, The Strangest Man reveals the many facets of Dirac’s brilliantly original mind, while also charting one of the most spectacularly exciting eras in scientific history.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Paul Dirac (1902 1984) shared the Nobel Prize for physics with Erwin Schr dinger in 1933, but whereas physicists regard Dirac as one of the giants of the 20th century, he isn't as well known outside the profession. This may be due to the lack of humorous quips attributed to Dirac, as compared with an Einstein or a Feynman. If he spoke at all, it was with one-word answers that made Calvin Coolidge look loquacious . Dirac adhered to Keats's admonition that "Beauty is truth, truth beauty": if an equation was "beautiful," it was probably correct, and vice versa. His most famous equation predicted the positron (now used in PET scans), which is the antiparticle of the electron, and antimatter in general. In 1955, Dirac came up with a primitive version of string theory, which today is the rock star branch of physics. Physicist Farmelo (It Must Be Beautiful) speculates that Dirac suffered from undiagnosed autism because his character quirks resembled autism's symptoms. Farmelo proves himself a wizard at explaining the arcane aspects of particle physics. His great affection for his odd but brilliant subject shows on every page, giving Dirac the biography any great scientist deserves.
