Paul Dirac, one of the most renowned theoretical physicists of all time, remains an enigmatic figure, largely due to his highly peculiar character. Danish physicist Niels Bohr famously referred to him as the “strangest man” after their encounter in Copenhagen.
This meeting marked the beginning of a connection that grew from a professional relationship into a deep human bond. Numerous anecdotes illustrate the intriguing dynamic between the English genius and the Danish physicist.
Dirac’s style was legendary for its clarity and simplicity. On one occasion, Bohr was struggling with a scientific paper, filled with hesitation and uncertainty. Frustrated, he confessed, “I don’t know how to go on.” Dirac, with his characteristic straightforwardness, responded, “At school, I was taught that you should never start a sentence without knowing the end.”
His colleagues at Cambridge described him as “a thin, meek, shy young man, who sneaks the streets, walks very close to the walls like a thief, and is not at all healthy.”
Albert Einstein once remarked about Dirac, “I have a lot of problems with Dirac. This balancing on a dizzying path between genius and madness is terrible!”
Dirac made groundbreaking contributions to physics, including quantizing the gravitational field, formulating a logical view of quantum mechanics, and predicting the existence of antimatter. Simultaneously, he was known for his eccentric and defiant behavior.
His way of life in society mirrored his logically precise and impeccable way of thinking. Once, at a dinner, a guest remarked, “A wonderful evening, isn’t it?” Dirac got up, went to the window to check the weather, and returned to the table with a concise answer: “Yes.”
Dirac often applied his theoretical insights to everyday life problems. At a party in Copenhagen, he proposed a theory that there exists an optimal distance at which a woman’s face appears most attractive. At an infinite distance, nothing can be seen, and at a distance of zero, the face’s shape is distorted due to the small diaphragm of the human eye and other imperfections. When Russian physicist Gamow interrupted him to ask how close he had ever seen a woman’s face, Dirac, holding his palms about a meter apart, exclaimed, “About that close!”
Another well-known anecdote involves Dirac at the University of Toronto. At the end of a lecture, he asked if there were any questions. A member of the audience said, “Professor Dirac, I don’t understand how you came up with the formula on the upper left side of the board.” Dirac’s icy response was swift: “This is not a question, this is an observation. Next question, please.”
Dirac was accustomed to people not understanding him, but this never made him angry or upset. He was also known for his precision in lectures. Victor Weisskopf told a famous joke about Dirac’s response to a student’s statement after a lecture: “I don’t understand that second equation, Professor Dirac.” Dirac said nothing. When the student pressed, “Are you not going to answer the question?” Dirac replied, “It wasn’t a question, it was a statement.”
Dirac, often apathetic and taciturn, felt particularly uneasy around women. While traveling with Werner Heisenberg on a transatlantic liner to Japan in 1929, he observed Heisenberg frequently flirting and dancing with girls. “Why are you dancing?” Dirac asked. Heisenberg responded, “When there are beautiful girls, it’s always nice.” After pondering for a few minutes, Dirac replied, “But Heisenberg, how do you know in advance that girls are beautiful?”
Dirac had little regard for philosophy, literature, and poetry. He once remarked, “If science is an attempt to explain in comprehensible words what people did not know before, then poetry is an expression of what everyone already knows, in words that no one can understand.”
He also questioned the value of discussing religion, believing that scientists must be honest and admit that religion is a mixture of false claims with no basis in reality. However, he once said that God used unusual mathematics to create the world, leading Austrian physicist Wolfgang Pauli to humorously summarize Dirac’s strange credo:
“God does not exist, but Dirac is his prophet.”
Paul Dirac’s life and career remain a testament to the delicate balance between unparalleled intellectual brilliance and idiosyncratic personal traits.
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