Paul Dirac: "The Strangest Man" of Science, Part 2
Science Talk
Scientific American
4.2 • 644 Ratings
🗓️ 25 June 2010
⏱️ 24 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
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| 0:34.3 | And welcome back for part two of our conversation with Graham Farmelow, author of The Strangest Man, the award-winning biography of the great theoretical physicist Paul Dirac. |
| 0:44.3 | But first, I'm happy to let you know that we have fished out the 1963 Scientific American article by Paul Dirac and posted it on our website where it will be available free |
| 0:56.0 | until July 24th, 2010. The article is called the Evolution of the Physicist's Picture of Nature, |
| 1:03.1 | and a shortened URL for it is b.it.l.ly slash dirac, 1963. Now back to Graham Farmelow, we were talking about Dirac, 1963. |
| 1:18.8 | Now back to Graham Farmelow, we were talking about Dirac's conviction that formulations in physics had to be beautiful. |
| 1:44.7 | I forget who said it. Maybe you said it actually as the narrator, that letting the beauty be your guide may only work if you're one of the few super geniuses of the field where you can appreciate the beauty. |
| 1:48.7 | If you're even a slightly lesser light of a physicist, |
| 1:53.5 | maybe you're not able to put that kind of beautiful thing together where beauty can be your God. |
| 1:55.3 | And then you really have to make sure that you're agreeing with experimental verification. |
| 2:00.2 | That is right. That is right. |
| 2:00.9 | That is right. |
| 2:01.4 | I have to say one thing, because although I admire Dirac as all theoretical physicists, I mean, |
| 2:06.1 | I'm a renegade theoretical physicist now, but all theoreticists really admire Dirac. |
| 2:09.8 | But it has to be said that in his later career, though he did first-rate work until he was, what, |
| 2:17.3 | 61 years old, wasn't revolutionary, like the until he was, what, 61 years old. |
| 2:19.1 | Wasn't revolutionary, like the work he was doing between 25 and 33, right? |
| 2:23.4 | But he was doing really first-rate work. |
... |
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