Paul Dirac

Overview

Paul Dirac trained as an electrical engineer in Bristol before moving to Cambridge, where he held Newton's chair. In 1928 he wrote an equation for the electron consistent with special relativity, which produced the electron's spin automatically rather than by assumption and had solutions corresponding to a particle with opposite charge. He argued the solutions should be taken seriously, and the positron was found in cosmic rays four years later, the first case of a particle predicted purely from the mathematics of a theory. He shared the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1933 with Schrödinger. His book The Principles of Quantum Mechanics established the notation and the abstract state-vector formulation still used, and remains readable, though it assumes real mathematical fluency.

Where to start reading

• The Quantum Theory of the Electron 1928

  The paper introducing the relativistic wave equation for the electron, from which spin and the existence of antimatter follow.

• The Principles of Quantum Mechanics 1930

  The book that gave quantum mechanics its abstract formulation and its standard notation, written to present the theory as a single structure rather than two competing versions.

Part of

• Quantum mechanics
• Quantum field theory

Sources

1. Paul Dirac Nobel Prize
2. Dirac equation English Wikipedia
3. Paul Dirac Britannica