
Paul Dirac: The Mozart of Science (2008) - Anon84
https://www.ias.edu/ideas/2008/farmelo-on-dirac
======
mjfl
The creativity of the Dirac equation really struck me when I first learned it.
Basically, it uses a mathematical trick to write sqrt(a^2 + b^2) = a + b,
which doesn't work for normal math, but does work if a and b _anticommute_ :
ab = -ba. You can implement this with matrices, and in the resulting solution
quantum spin just pops out. Astounding.

------
wrycoder
This unique man, the most elegant physicist of the 20th century.

Who used pure thought to predict antimatter and founded quantum field theory.

Who mused in the '60s whether it was actually a good idea to merge space and
time into a 4D entity after all.

Who wears a sack coat and tie to clear brush with an axe.

------
signa11
the book, 'the strangest man' (graham-farmelo), is an excellent biographical
account of p.a.m.d

his colleagues at cambridge, created a unit called 'dirac', which was 1
word/hour to describe his taciturn nature :o)

~~~
XeO3
> his colleagues at cambridge, created a unit called 'dirac', which was 1
> word/hour to describe his taciturn nature :o)

There are always more people who'd rather speak than listen. :)

------
photon_lines
Dirac was a legend and a man who actually believed in the principle that the
universe itself was a mathematical structure, rather than making mathematics
the tool which we use to describe the universe. His amazing prediction of
anti-matter from a pure theoretical / mathematical basis was astounding. He
also believed in the principle of mathematical beauty and that one should use
this principle in attempting to find the laws of the universe, and I very much
agree.

 _In the James Scott Prize Lecture that he gave on 6 February 1939, Dirac
spelled out his new ideas of the relationship between mathematics and physics
which focused on the concept of mathematical beauty. Many years before his
brother in law Eugene Wigner famously problematized the unreasonable
effectiveness of mathematics in the natural sciences, Dirac discussed the same
topic. How is it that the mathematical-deductive method is so remarkably
successful in physics? According to Dirac:_

 _“This must be ascribed to some mathematical quality in Nature, a quality
which the casual observer of Nature would not suspect, but which nevertheless
plays an important role in Nature’s scheme. One might describe the
mathematical quality in Nature by saying that the universe is so constituted
that mathematics is a useful tool in its description. However, recent advances
in physical science show that this statement of the case is too trivial. The
connection between mathematics and the description of the universe goes far
deeper than this.”_

 _In his James Scott Lecture and at numerous later occasions, Dirac asserted
that the modern history of theoretical physics provides convincing evidence
that there is a perfect marriage between the rules that mathematicians find
interesting by their own standards and the rules that govern natural
phenomena. He thought this was not accidental, but that it might reflect some
deep identity between mathematics and physics:_

 _“Pure mathematics and physics are becoming ever more closely connected,
though their methods remain different. One may describe the situation by
saying that the mathematician plays a game in which he himself invents the
rules while the physicist plays a game in which the rules are provided by
Nature, but as time goes on it becomes increasingly evident that the rules
which the mathematician finds interesting are the same as those which Nature
has chosen. It is difficult to predict what the result of all this will be.
Possibly, the two subjects will ultimately unify, every branch of pure
mathematics then having its physical application, its importance in physics
being proportional to its interest in mathematics.”_

 _Dirac suggested that future developments in theoretical physics would lead
to the “existence of a scheme in which the whole of the description of the
universe has its mathematical counterpart.” In accordance with this
philosophy, he advised physicists to “begin by choosing that branch of
mathematics which one thinks will form the basis of the new theory. One should
be influenced very much in this choice by considerations of mathematical
beauty. . . . Having decided on the branch of mathematics, one should proceed
to develop it along suitable lines, at the same time looking for that way in
which it appears to lend itself naturally to physical interpretation.”_

Source:

[https://blogs.unimelb.edu.au/sciencecommunication/2017/09/24...](https://blogs.unimelb.edu.au/sciencecommunication/2017/09/24/on-
mathematical-beauty-in-physics/)

He was an outstanding man with outstanding insights on the nature of matter
and the universe.

------
yandrypozo
Finally someone says it here in HN!

