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Paul Dirac Biography

Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac OM FRS (/dɪˈræk/; 8 August 1902 – 20 October 1984) was an English theoretical physicist who is regarded as one of the most significant physicists of the 20th century.

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Paul Dirac Quotes

God used beautiful mathematics in creating the world.

Beautiful, Creating, God, Mathematics, Used, World

It is more important to have beauty in one's equations than to have them fit experiment. . . 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. If there is not complete agreement between the results of one's work and experiment, one should not allow oneself to be too discouraged, because the discrepancy may well be due to minor features that are not properly taken into account and that will get cleared up with further developments of the theory.

Developments, Further, Mathematical Equations, Science, Taken, Theory

I think it is 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. At age 60.

Beautiful, Science, Thinking, Meaning, Mathematical, Physical

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.

Sunday, Ideas, Long, Take, Perhaps, Way

The underlying physical laws necessary for the mathematical theory of a large part of physics and the whole of chemistry are thus completely known, and the difficulty is only that the exact application of these laws leads to equations much too complicated to be soluble. It therefore becomes desirable that approximate practical methods of applying quantum mechanics should be developed, which can lead to an explanation of the main features of complex atomic systems without too much computation.

Law, Too Much, Chemistry, Leads, Whole, Methods

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.

Biographies, Desk, Rooms, Science, Stayed, Walk

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.

Views, Mathematical Equations, Progress, Line, Beauty, View

A good deal of my research in physics has consisted in not setting out to solve some particular problem, but simply examining mathematical equations of a kind that physicists use and trying to fit them together in an interesting way, regardless of any application that the work may have. It is simply a search for pretty mathematics. It may turn out later to have an application. Then one has good luck. At age 78.

Good Luck, Science, Mathematical Equations, Solve, Application, Good

If we are honest - and scientists have to be - we must admit that religion is a jumble of false assertions, with no basis in reality.

Atheism, Basis, Jumble, Reality, Religion, Scientists

Well, in the first place, it leads to great anxiety as to whether it's going to be correct or not. . . I expect that's the dominating feeling. It gets to be rather a fever. . . At age 60, when asked about his feelings on discovering the Dirac equation.

Science, Anxiety, Feelings, Dominating, Equation, Dirac

The research worker, in his efforts to express the fundamental laws of Nature in mathematical form, should strive mainly for mathematical beauty. He should take simplicity into consideration in a subordinate way to beauty. . . It often happens that the requirements of simplicity and beauty are the same, but where they clash, the latter must take precedence.

Science, Law, Simplicity, Clash, Research, Efforts

A theory with mathematical beauty is more likely to be correct than an ugly one that fits some experimental data.

Data, Experimental, Fit, Fits, Mathematical, Ugly

The only object of theoretical physics is to calculate results that can be compared with experiment. . . it is quite unnecessary that any satisfactory description of the whole course of the phenomena should be given.

Theoretical Physics, Unnecessary, Mechanic, Theoretical, Quite, Course

A termination of one's life is necessary in the scheme of things to provide a logical reason for unselfishness. . . . The fact that there is an end to one's life compels one to take an interest in things that will continue to live after one is dead.

Facts, Life Is, Logical, Necessary, Provide, Reason

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.

Incompatible, Simple, Things, Two, Understandable, Way

A great deal of my work is just playing with equations and seeing what they give.

Science, Giving, Biographies, Equations, Seeing, Playing

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.

Appreciate, Art, People, Relativity, Spite

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.

Math, Power, Tools, Tool, Field, Suited

The measure of greatness in a scientific idea is the extent to which it stimulates thought and opens up new lines of research.

Greatness, Ideas, Lines, Research, Stimulates

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 you want to say something that nobody knew before, in words which everyone can understand. In poetry you are bound to say. . . something that everyone knows already in words that nobody can understand. Commenting to him about the poetry J. Robert Oppenheimer wrote.

Men, Physics, Poetry, Robert, See, Writing

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