Paul Dirac
In 1933, the Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded jointly to Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac and Erwin Schrödinger, a recognition that placed Dirac among the foremost theoretical physicists of the twentieth century.
Born on 8 August 1902 in Bristol, Dirac held citizenship in both the United Kingdom and Switzerland. His formal education began at Cotham School before he proceeded to the University of Bristol, and he subsequently continued his studies at the University of Cambridge. Working as a mathematician and theoretical physicist, Dirac conducted his career in English and produced research that positioned him within the scientific community as a figure of considerable standing.
Beyond the Nobel Prize, Dirac received several other marks of professional recognition. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, one of the oldest and most selective scientific bodies in the world, and he was also awarded the Order of Merit, a distinction granted by the British Crown to individuals of exceptional service in the armed forces or for contributions to the arts, learning, or science. These honours, taken together, reflect the sustained regard in which his peers and institutions held his contributions to theoretical physics and mathematics over the course of his career.
Dirac died on 20 October 1984 in Tallahassee, Florida, bringing to a close a life that had begun more than eight decades earlier on the other side of the Atlantic. The shared Nobel Prize he received with Schrödinger in 1933 remains among the most concrete measures of his standing in the scientific community of his time.
Quotes by Paul Dirac
Paul Dirac's insights on:
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.
I do not see how a man can work on the frontiers of physics and write poetry at the same time. They are in opposition.
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.
Living is worthwhile if one can contribute in some small way to this endless chain of progress.
What makes the theory of relativity so acceptable to physicists in spite of its going against the principle of simplicity is its great mathematical beauty. This is a quality which cannot be defined, any more than beauty in art can be defined, but which people who study mathematics usually have no difficulty in appreciating.
![When [Erwin Schrödinger] went to the Solvay conferences in Brussels, he would walk from the station to the hotel where the delegates stayed, carrying all his luggage in a rucksack and looking so like a tramp that it needed a great deal of argument at the reception desk before he could claim a room.](https://lakl0ama8n6qbptj.public.blob.vercel-storage.com/quotes/quote-1350556.png)
When [Erwin Schrödinger] went to the Solvay conferences in Brussels, he would walk from the station to the hotel where the delegates stayed, carrying all his luggage in a rucksack and looking so like a tramp that it needed a great deal of argument at the reception desk before he could claim a room.
One could perhaps describe the situation by saying that God is a mathematician of a very high order, and He used very advanced mathematics in constructing the universe
It is more important to have beauty in one's equations than to have them fit experiment.
Mathematics is the tool specially suited for dealing with abstract concepts of any kind and there is no limit to its power in this field.