In his later years, in the 1970s (and Dirac's 70's) he moved to Florida to live near his daughter. Florida State made him a faculty member and gave him an office so that he could come in when he liked and talk to other physicists. He would sometimes attend seminars and became well-known for falling asleep during the lectures, or at least seeming to. Maybe he was just "resting his eyes" because he would sometimes open them suddenly and make a relevant remark or ask a question. One of my physics professors was a graduate student at FSU during that time and told me that a young visiting physicist was nervous giving his presentation with Dirac in the audience. He became even more flustered as Dirac seemed to fall asleep. He struggled with the equation he was deriving on the board without notes, and had to go back and make many corrections. Finally he made it to the end, though the sign was wrong. He said something like "Sorry, this came out negative, but it should be positive, so I must have made a sign error somewhere along the line." At that point Dirac's eyes opened and he said "Or anyway an odd number of them."

@PursuitofKnowledge178

23 күн бұрын

Appreciate you sharing this Mark, very interesting story about PAMD

@Christina.N.

17 күн бұрын

That is actually hilarious! What a gem!

Dirac was an admirer of Enrico Fermi. With undue modesty, Dirac insisted that the name "Fermi" come before his own regarding Fermi Dirac Statistics and even would refer to Fermi Dirac Statistics as simply "Fermi statistics" which shows that Dirac was genuinely humble and generous.

@PursuitofKnowledge178

26 күн бұрын

This is a good one and true! Thanks!

@azhankhan9218

5 күн бұрын

..he also said that Bose Einstein statistics should also be called bose statistics just from the argument of symmetry...

Another great video! Thank you for your hard work. This video reminded me of an article in which Mrs. Dirac was interviewed shortly after his death. She said, "I only saw my husband cry once, and that was when Einstein passed away."

@PursuitofKnowledge178

7 ай бұрын

Always appreciate your knowledge and information Mozart! I was actually amazed at how hard it was to find the last 2 quotes about Dirac from fellow physicists. I thought surely they would be everywhere online and perhaps they are but I did not readily find them😁

@mozartjpn137

7 ай бұрын

@@PursuitofKnowledge178 A physics professor handed me a news paper saying, "Here is your hero's article surely you want to read." Too bad that I do not have the copy of the article. I think the newspaper was a Florida local paper. Dirac spent his last years in Florida.

One of the strangest coincidences is the fact that Cary Grant and Paul Dirac went to the same elementary school.

@PursuitofKnowledge178

2 ай бұрын

Nice tidbit of info!!

@anuj7008

25 күн бұрын

Who is Cary Grant?

@PursuitofKnowledge178

25 күн бұрын

@@anuj7008 a famous English/American actor of the mid 20th century

Enjoyed it. I ran into G. Farmelo's "The Strangest Man" a few years ago and it was one of my best reads.

@PursuitofKnowledge178

7 ай бұрын

That is awesome. I think 3 of the quotes here are from that book. Excellent read it is about an interesting individual!

@greensombrero3641

7 ай бұрын

I loved the book

@qubitsforce2164

16 күн бұрын

I have Dirac's Quantum Mechanics book since the 80's when I studied Physics in London. The book was well-researched. Wish I could have met him then. I did meet or get to sit in a lecture by Penrose, Hawkins, Hulse & Taylor and Salam (name-dropping) - sorry 🙂

I’m a physicist so I have heard many of these and more about Dirac. But the one I like most was one that occurred amongst physicists - while not actually concerned with physics - was this … As related by George Gamow, Dirac once at a party stated his conclusion that there must exist an ideal distance to view a beautiful woman’s face, since if you were too close all you could see is pores, etc, and if you were too far her face would be reduced to a mere point. I don’t believe he ever worked out the precise distance, but was satisfied with the proof of its existence. Anyway, this anecdote seems to provide a vivid picture the man, both of his human awkwardness and his direct approach to a range of “problems”. 😊

@PursuitofKnowledge178

Ай бұрын

I heard that one too from Gamow and it is very good casting a light on Dirac's personality!

@markmillonas1896

Ай бұрын

@@PursuitofKnowledge178I think the actual quote, if you ever want to use it, was from the “pop science” history “Thirty Years that Shook Physics”. I think I read that one when I was about ten. But it does seem that most people who met him have a story or two.

@PursuitofKnowledge178

Ай бұрын

Thanks for this Mark, may do another video on Dirac of some kind as he seems to have a bit of either a following or simply is a very interesting person or both!

@markmillonas1896

Ай бұрын

@@PursuitofKnowledge178 Incidentally, I think this was the same book that relates a story about Wolfgang Pauli's ultimate "diss" after hearing a talk - "Not even wrong". Meaning that the ideas presented weren't even coherant enough to make incorrect predictions. He is supposed to have used that one many times, and there are a few times I've muttered this under my breath after a talk, and in many totally nonscientific contexts, smiling and thinking about Pauli. I really like that one, and with all the incoherent nonsense in the world today there is probably a whole youtube channel that could be devoted to the theme of "Not even wrong!"

@PursuitofKnowledge178

Ай бұрын

@@markmillonas1896 love that Pauli quote also and had to work it into my video about Wolfgang. My understanding of that phrase is that at least some theories you can either prove or disprove but the really atrocious theories you can't even prove wrong!!

Perhaps apocryphal, but: Dirac was seated beside a woman at some banquet. By way of conversation, he said to her, _"I have an equation [named after me]. Do you have one?"_

@Sean_Coyne

18 күн бұрын

It wasn't a woman, it was Richard Feynman, when they first met in the USA.

Made this one mainly for my subscribers who subscribed to my Paul Dirac 10 facts video👍

@greensombrero3641

7 ай бұрын

great work

@PursuitofKnowledge178

7 ай бұрын

Thanks heaps for the nod Green!!

Brilliantly illuminating this extraordinary mind. Thank you for your work!

@PursuitofKnowledge178

Ай бұрын

My pleasure Springwood! Ty!

I used to agree with Feynman's comment,but Maxwell did physics in the deductive manner which is perfectly fine.

Dirac's mind is among the top ten in human history, imho

Very good. Thank you.

@PursuitofKnowledge178

6 ай бұрын

Thank you Sailor! I've come to realise Dirac has a good following and much admiration to him!

Nice presentation.

@PursuitofKnowledge178

3 ай бұрын

Thanks Dyby!!

Excellent video.

@PursuitofKnowledge178

26 күн бұрын

Thank you very much!

There is talk of Dirac being a high functioning person on the Autism spectrum. Asperger syndrome perhaps. Definitely a genius servant. Others such as Einstein are rumoured to be so too.

@PursuitofKnowledge178

Ай бұрын

I would not doubt this in the least.

@la7dfa

6 күн бұрын

Dirac were beyond asperger and well into autism. Savants often get the capacity to tap directly into parallell processes in the brain. That is how they get some "super human skills". In addition to Dirac, we should also thank his intelligent wife Margit Wigner for making it her task to take care of him and let him do his amazing work.

And yet, for all that, the thing I love most about Dirac is this: he was a big fan of Cher. 😊

@Herman47

Ай бұрын

I have wondered if Cher ever knew this.

I read (or tried to read) Dirac's book on quantum mechanics when I was 18 or 19 years old. The Nobel laureate Julian Schwinger read the same book at 13 years of age!

@PursuitofKnowledge178

Ай бұрын

Interesting tidbit of knowledge there tubelcain!

@terencemeikle534

Ай бұрын

On the face of it, the 'bra' and 'ket' notation looks very simple. But it's when he starts to develop it that my mind freezes over. Compared to Dirac's formulations, the good old Schrodinger equations seem ever so friendly!

@tubalcain1039

Ай бұрын

@@terencemeikle534 Schrodinger was quite remarkable as well. Schrodinger found an ally with Albert Einstein who referred to him as a friend.

great job on PAMD

@PursuitofKnowledge178

7 ай бұрын

Thanks for that Green!! What a guy he is😇

The more I was getting into physics I noticed that the physicists of the past as even the contemporary ones come up with theories and conjuring of their thories. It seems like what they actually present to the World is somehow a blurred picture of reality and nothing is certain with such people as if their ideas are stuck in a twilight zone.

@PursuitofKnowledge178

7 ай бұрын

Do you find that some of the theories could almost be philosophies?

Very interesting but I can think of at least 4 missing: Penrose, Schrödinger, Heisenberg and De Broglie! Any more suggestions?

@PursuitofKnowledge178

Ай бұрын

Probably a fair few more. Theme of the channel is 10 facts (in this case quotes). Maybe time for a follow up of 10 more!

@calicoesblue4703

5 күн бұрын

@@PursuitofKnowledge178Yes.😎👍

Paul Dirac ✋🖖👍

Feynman looks rather dashing in the photo you used for his quote. He wins the award for best hair on a physicist.

@PursuitofKnowledge178

15 күн бұрын

Feynman, always the colourful character inside and out!

@Cdearle

9 күн бұрын

Also the only Nobel prize winner for physics with such a strong New York accent!

@mattmiller4917

9 күн бұрын

@@Cdearle Yep, grew up as a kid roaming the beaches of Far Rockaways.

Dirac is unfortunately a little abstract to the average Joe. I remember always thinking that there were the four horsemen of quantum physics: Bohr, Heisenberg, Schrödinger and Feynman, but after I remember learning about Dirac, I added a 5th

@PursuitofKnowledge178

7 ай бұрын

Agree with you there Bach. Until I started getting into QM I never heard of Dirac but I've come to learn that with in QM circles he ranks up there with raw abilities.

@lucasmcguire1554

3 ай бұрын

Yeh sorry but putting Feynmann in there is definitely incorrect. I'd take Feynman out and add in Dirac and Pauli. Feynmann was very famous and certainly a brilliant physicist but not to the level of the others mentioned in terms of contributions to quantum mechanics. If you're gonna have Feynmann there then there's like 50 others you'd have to also include

@Mortgageman145

3 ай бұрын

@@lucasmcguire1554 Respectfully, I disagree. Quantum electrodynamics is just too fundamental to our understanding of the universe to dismiss. Literally every reputable physicist considers him amongst those ranks. I do agree that I missed out Pauli

@lucasmcguire1554

3 ай бұрын

​@@Mortgageman145 I understand your logic but again I think you're wrong. Quantum electrodynamics was developed by many people, Feynman's contribution was solving the renormalisation problem, which was also done seperately by Shwinger and Dyson, albeit in less elegant forms. Yes Feynman is spoken about a lot by other physicists but that is because of his genius and charisma not his direct contributions. It's a similar case with Von Neumann; he is spoken about a lot by physicists but only because he was insanely smart, not because of his direct contributions.

@perryrice6573

Ай бұрын

Max Born too

Max Born's granddaughter was Olivia Newton-John.

@PursuitofKnowledge178

Ай бұрын

100%

@GeorgeSmiley77

27 күн бұрын

Olivia Neutron-Bomb

@mattmiller4917

15 күн бұрын

@@GeorgeSmiley77 You win the internet!

Rudolf Peierls comment was really perceptive. I used to think Einstein's comment was motivated by feelings of reputational defensiveness,but ,no, Einstein was right.

each person follow God's leadership

Very interesting amigo. Yes, Dirac seems to have been a genius [does any mathematician / physicist of note deny this ?] and a "character"...no harm in that [ au contraire].

@PursuitofKnowledge178

2 ай бұрын

Thank you for the comment Bruce!! All the best

@BruceJackson-lx2dw

2 ай бұрын

@@PursuitofKnowledge178 And all the best to you my friend.

After reading the other comments, and having met him somewhere around 1968, I know he didn't reach critical mass, and presume he was very selective about any books he may have read. That kept him clean of mind trash, and left him with the opportunity of clear thinking, with thanks to whomever gave him his fundamentals. It's very likely his quad numbers put him squarely on Patent X, without Ascendency. For the record, I didn't know who he was, he did try to approach me, we had a chat, ...anyways, I left him sitting on the curb across the street from my mothers' house, ( which is now a bus stop), after which he disappeared. At the time I was just overwhelmed by a number of such people, and certainly was unwilling to assume latent obligations. And, had no idea he was british.

@ruffifuffler8711

Ай бұрын

Rethinking here, that it was 1965, since after that, I could barely add or subtract anything, had zero affinity for reading, so there must have been a radical change in things.

He looks like Einstein to me tbh.

I also make a good omelet .

I could imagine that people exceptionally gifted in some activity display spectacular mediocrity in many other activities.

@GeorgeSmiley77

27 күн бұрын

I read that the playwright Tennessee Williams did not know how to make a sandwich.

@decyattysyachpchyol

19 күн бұрын

Often but not always. As a socially deficient physics c major (the c is a typo from a shaky finger but think is brilliant as a music/academic pun so I leave it), I met people as bright as and much brighter than I who were far more sociable/popular and well-read and athletic. Look at Murray Gell-Mann and John Von Neuman as examples of well-rounded genius physicists.

Was he french?

@PursuitofKnowledge178

Ай бұрын

He was not specifically but his father was of French decent from Switzerland and also a French teacher in England and word is that he made Paul speak in French as a child which possibly helped lead to Paul's introverted nature

@benquinneyiii7941

Ай бұрын

@@PursuitofKnowledge178 like Einstein

Didn’t he get two Nobel Prizes?

@PursuitofKnowledge178

20 күн бұрын

Pretty sure just the one he shared with Schrödinger in 1933

Could be Einstein stole his thunder, and that is no criticism of Einstein, Relativity is far stranger than Quantum Mechanics. Quantum Mechanics is just an Access Problem. We cannot access a deep enough layer of reality.

I will never understand why English intellectuals debunk god without any scientific proof, maybe the Jews told them to favor gays not god.

@briancox9357

Ай бұрын

The onus of proof is on those who believe in God, not those who don't.

@sonarbangla8711

Ай бұрын

@@briancox9357 Atheists desperately try to prove their stand claiming luck and /or accident is the scientific explanation. Those who accept this nonsense are fools. There no proof for or against 'divine design', believers accept circumstantial proof of order out of chaos among many proofs (one such proof consists of winning millions of lotteries in a row over billions of years creating life and consciousness. The choice is yours, luck and accident or not.

@us-Bahn

Ай бұрын

Bertr. Russell reputedly remarked if he ever found himself standing before God he would say “Why, Lotd, did you not give me more proof?”

@sonarbangla8711

Ай бұрын

@@us-Bahn Don't tell god what not to do. Bohr was a better intellectual.

@GeorgeSmiley77

27 күн бұрын

Here's how they do it: _"That which can be asserted without proof can be dismissed without proof."_ -Christopher Hitchens The onus of proof remains with the claimant, not the skeptic.