
The life-changing love of Paul Dirac (2015) - anthilemoon
https://theconversation.com/the-life-changing-love-of-one-of-the-20th-centurys-greatest-physicists-51229
======
BigHatLogan
That's a touching story, and it illustrates something I've been thinking about
recently: that we're not as "rational" as we think we are, to a certain
extent, because all of our current rationality depends on everything that has
happened, not everything that will happen in the future.

Paul Dirac, an absolutely brilliant man, decided early on that his life "was
mainly concerned with facts and not feelings." In a sense he planned his life
out with imperfect information--as we all do--until something came along and
completely turned his life around, in this case his future wife.

I think that's a hopeful message? That your life and your thoughts are limited
by all that has happened to you, not by what hasn't happened to you yet, by
definition, because you can't imagine a future that hasn't happened to you. I
know, anecdotally, a handful of people who swore off marriage in their 20s,
only to turn right around and get married in their 30s after meeting somebody
who changed their minds. The same is true for academics and, really,
everything--a student who resigns himself to hating math until he finds a
teacher who understands his feelings, etc.

Or maybe it's late and I'm rambling. Either way, I really enjoyed reading this
essay.

~~~
raducu
That's not rambling at all. No matter what you believe about humans -- that we
have a soul or we are (just) very complex biological machinery, in the end,
everything scientists do, do for human kind.

High achieving scientists tend to start by focusing on logic and "reason", and
that's why they become high achieving.

But there is no reason not to explore our humanness later in life.

Even if MBTI is regarded as pseudoscience, as an INTJ, I know that later in
life I must explore and improve my not so developed soft skills, and it only
feels natural.

~~~
lain__
I, and everyone I know, have found the enneagram to be much more predictive
and comprehensive of people's behaviour and how they think. (And much more
helpful too)

[https://www.eclecticenergies.com/enneagram/test](https://www.eclecticenergies.com/enneagram/test)

[https://www.reddit.com/r/Enneagram/comments/dc4g4i/a_compreh...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Enneagram/comments/dc4g4i/a_comprehensive_guide_to_all_things_enneagram/)

------
pge
Sounds like a graph of the quality of his relationships with other human
beings would have a spike at only one point and zero everywhere else...

~~~
arethuza
Just in case anyone didn't get the joke:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirac_delta_function](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirac_delta_function)

------
lowkeynthorough
:o the original Manci Pixie Dream girl

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manic_Pixie_Dream_Girl](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manic_Pixie_Dream_Girl)

~~~
ahartmetz
That seems a bit disrespectul as a summary, even though I have to grudgingly
admit that it's not wrong... It would have been nice for the article to say
more about the woman, which would have mostly avoided the cliché!

~~~
mlang23
But the whole article is a cliché!

The socially incompetent techie who is rescued by love from his rationality.

I dont wanna guess how many readers here secretly hope for this event to occur
at some point. Like in the story, ideally they'd not even have to court the
woman. She would just appear and take care of them. Cliché!

~~~
lcuff
It does echo a bad Nicholas Sparks novel (they're all bad). But when the
cliché is writ large in real life, it's touching, no? Secretly hoping for
_something_ to magically rescue us from the emotional difficulties of our
lives ... of course. Likelihood of it happening: (1.0 e -42).

------
karlicoss
If you want to learn a bit more about Dirac's life, I really recommend reading
"The Strangest Man"
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Strangest_Man](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Strangest_Man)

------
algorithmsRcool
> After returning from a visit with her in Budapest, Dirac wrote, “I felt very
> sad leaving you and still feel that I miss you very much. I do not
> understand why this should be, as I do not usually miss people when I leave
> them.”

This line is like something out of a movie.

------
evanb
Dirac used to introduce her as "Wigner's sister" rather than "my wife".

------
uwagar
why should someone be 'less than fully human' if they dont have 'feelings',
particularly of the romantic kind.

we accept people of different sexual orientations. we should accept people of
all emotional orientations too.

~~~
Wolfenstein98k
Agreed in principle, but even Dirac felt his life was richer for it.

"Feelings" are part of the human condition. They're worth some work.

~~~
uwagar
'even Dirac': just a human. one human is not superior to another.

people say things - even in their autobiographies - that they dont fully
subscribe to. they worry about how they will be perceived for their true
feelings.

~~~
Wolfenstein98k
Perhaps. But second-guessing people's statements based on what you imagine
their inner thoughts are is a risky venture at best.

------
edibleEnergy
I listened to a very good 'In Our Time' podcast episode about Paul Dirac
recently:
[https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000fw0p](https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000fw0p)

------
da39a3ee
He said quite a few words in succession on religion. Somehow most of a century
later, the intelligentsia persists in claiming that views such as these (i.e.
those also of Dawkins et al.) are somehow "childish" or "culturally
illiterate".

 _I cannot understand why we idle discussing religion. 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. The very idea of God is a product of the
human imagination. It is quite understandable why primitive people, who were
so much more exposed to the overpowering forces of nature than we are today,
should have personified these forces in fear and trembling. But nowadays, when
we understand so many natural processes, we have no need for such solutions. I
can 't for the life of me see how the postulate of an Almighty God helps us in
any way. What I do see is that this assumption leads to such unproductive
questions as why God allows so much misery and injustice, the exploitation of
the poor by the rich and all the other horrors He might have prevented. If
religion is still being taught, it is by no means because its ideas still
convince us, but simply because some of us want to keep the lower classes
quiet. Quiet people are much easier to govern than clamorous and dissatisfied
ones. They are also much easier to exploit. Religion is a kind of opium that
allows a nation to lull itself into wishful dreams and so forget the
injustices that are being perpetrated against the people. Hence the close
alliance between those two great political forces, the State and the Church.
Both need the illusion that a kindly God rewards—in heaven if not on earth—all
those who have not risen up against injustice, who have done their duty
quietly and uncomplainingly. That is precisely why the honest assertion that
God is a mere product of the human imagination is branded as the worst of all
mortal sins._

------
OneGuy123
His father caused his "lack of desire to speak" by beating him for each
speaking error while he was a child.

Dirac solved this error as best as a child could: by not speaking. This trauma
lasted to his death.

Someone will now say "citation needed", and to those people I give these 2
books to read and what I wrote above will become as clear as day.

Alice Miller: The Drama of the Gifted Child

Alice Miller: The Body Never Lies

------
luord
One of my hobbies is reading (and writing, one day) short romance stories,
another one is reading factoids about distinguished people, specially
scientists. I was grinning like a fool through most of this article.

I like this because it generally asserts that anyone, even someone as
apparently closed off as Dirac, can find love and/or happiness.

------
pvitz
Dirac himself told the reason of why he didn't talk much differently:

Wigner:

How much did you talk to your parents?

Dirac:

Very little. My father made the rule that I should only talk to him in French.
He thought it would be good for me to learn French in that way. Since I found
that I couldn’t express myself in French, it was better for me to stay silent
than to talk in English.

Source: [https://www.aip.org/history-programs/niels-bohr-
library/oral...](https://www.aip.org/history-programs/niels-bohr-library/oral-
histories/4575-1)

------
kumarvvr
Perhaps his human side was suppressed.

People with high IQs, who win Nobel prizes are more complex than the average
joe. Their motivations, inspirations and behaviour, perhaps, needs a different
perspective than normal analysis.

Its a wonderful article, but seems to suggest that his human nature was non
existant, rather than hidden. This I find is unbelievable. Perhaps he never
had a chance to truly explore his human side, mainly because those who tried
to make him explore were not patient nor persistant.

------
neilv
> _Dirac pondered this for some minutes before responding, “But Heisenberg,
> how do you know beforehand that the girls are nice?”_

~~~
eigenhombre
Perhaps Heisenberg was willing to accept some... _uncertainty_ in his life?

~~~
prmph
Indeed, he probably did not live strictly by principle as we imagine

------
YeGoblynQueenne
Interesting article. Title needs (2015).

------
Wolfenstein98k
This is really sweet.

Not much to say... Life is meant to be lived. Don't forget to live it.

------
scottlocklin
> “A single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.”

I don't understand how this is supposed to be some kind of heart warming
story. I mean.... maybe it was something nice for Dirac, but it sounds as much
like a ruthless sociopath hunting a the man down like a zebra on the Serengeti
plain. I guess there were kids at least! But otherwise there's no indication
Dirac ... was any more (or to be fair less) happy afterwords.

------
JoeAltmaier
Curiously, nothing is said about how this 'life-changing' love actually
changed his life and work.

~~~
wackro
You seem to have somehow missed the part where he dicovered a new outlook and
gained the ability to feel.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Yeah sure. But how about, did he do any more physics? The guy was defined by
that. If he lost anything there, it would be more significant to history. But
nothing mentioned.

~~~
failrate
Considering that we do not have the ability to walk down the alternative path
where they did not meet, it is impossible to know whether it was a bonus or
impediment to his scientific work.

As opposed to Erdős, where we know what happened when he kicked speed for a
month.

------
hackeraccount
From the title I thought I'd be R. Feynman.

~~~
xenonite
The story also suits the Sheldon character from the Big Bang Theory serial.

------
draw_down
It is really wonderful when you get to know someone and they show you a whole
new part of life you hadn't experienced before. I think it's a big mistake to
close off the possibility of such things ("my life is about facts not
feelings"), but then again I have no Nobel prizes to my name.

