Product Description

Paul Dirac was one of the leading pioneers of the greatest revolution in 20th-century science: quantum mechanics. One of the youngest theoreticians ever to win the Nobel Prize for Physics, he was also pathologically reticent, strangely literal-minded and legendarily unable to communicate or empathize. Through his greatest period of productivity, his postcards home contained only remarks about the weather.

Based on a previously undiscovered archive of family papers, Graham Farmelo celebrates Dirac's massive scientific achievement while drawing a compassionate portrait of his life and work. Farmelo shows a man who, while hopelessly socially inept, could manage to love and sustain close friendship.

'The Strangest Man' is an extraordinary and moving human story, as well as a study of one of the most exciting times in scientific history.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #6127 in Books
• Published on: 2009-01-22
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 539 pages

Review
'Graham Farmelo has found the subject he was born to write about, and brought it off triumphantly. Dirac was one of the great founding fathers of modern physics, a theoretician who explored the sub-atomic world through the power of pure mathematics. He was also a most extraordinary man - an extreme introvert, and perhaps autistic. Farmelo traces the outward events as authoritatively as the inward. This is a monumental achievement - one of the great scientific biographies.' --Michael Frayn

'A must-read for anyone interested in the extraordinary power of pure thought. With this revelatory, moving and definitive biography, Graham Farmelo provides the first real glimpse inside the bizarre mind of Paul Dirac, Britain's Einstein, to explain how this great unsung national hero harnessed beauty to reveal the existence of anti-matter and even to glimpse the beginnings of string theory.' --Roger Highfield, New Scientist

'This is a beautifully written, remarkable biography of a remarkable man. It paints a sensitive portrait of his character, puts into words his science in a way that will capture every reader's attention and memorably conveys Dirac's achievement.' --Silvan Schweber

Review
'This is a beautifully written, remarkable biography of a remarkable man. It paints a sensitive portrait of his character, puts into words his science in a way that will capture every reader's attention and memorably conveys Dirac's achievement.'

About the Author
Graham Farmelo is Senior Research Fellow at the Science Museum, London, and Adjunct Professor of Physics at Northeastern University, Boston, USA. Formerly a theoretical physicist, he is now an international consultant in science communication. He edited the best-selling It Must be Beautiful: Great Equations of Modern Science in 2002. He lives in London.

Customer Reviews

A Gem Of A Book...
I'm a Physics student, and love to read things not directly related to my course; this book fits the bill perfectly, and, although not a big fan of biographies, this book unfolds like a well written story, where all the characters that come and go just happen to be Nobel Prize winners, or, more likely, have things that we use every day named after them.

I could not reccomend this book more for people with even a passing interest in Physics, there's not too much hardcore maths here at all, but the story and the way he is portrayed is magical.
Farmelo, I salute you.
And everyone, but this!

Jess

Dirac, the definitive biography
Dirac was one of the founders of quantum theory and one of the most profound and original minds of the twentieth century. But, as the title of this book says, he was also a very strange man, austere in his personal relations, sometimes to the point of perversity, and unable to communicate, either emotionally or verbally, except with only a few very close friends. The origin of his behaviour may have been a form of autism, but was undoubtedly also influenced by his early family life and the relationship with his parents, particularly his father. The book thoroughly and sensitively weaves the story of the development of Dirac the theoretical physicist and his discoveries with the psychology of his personal life, and explores how the influence of his family was important in shaping his interaction with the world.

Dirac's achievements, grounded as they are in advanced mathematics, are difficult to explain to non-scientists, but the author succeeds admirably and his clear explanations enable the general reader to appreciate even the most abstract concepts. Anecdotes about Dirac are part of the folklore of physics, but this book contains a wealth of documented facts and information that I for one was unaware of. The most surprising (for me) was Dirac's experimental work on isotope separation. Above all there emerges from the book a strong impression of what drove Dirac in his endless search for perfection as he saw it. Needless to say, he was not satisfied that he had achieved this (even towards the end of his life saying to one person that his life had been a failure!), but his ideas remain as important as ever. Suggestions he made, long overlooked, are still proving to be fruitful today.

The author obviously has great admiration for his subject, but this does not prevent him honestly evaluating Dirac, both his towering scientific achievements and where he had lack of vision; as well as his deficiencies as a human being. Farmelo has produced a superb book, beautifully written and meticulously researched. It is writing of a very high order, which is surely destined to be the definitive biography of Dirac for the foreseeable future.

A great biography of a great physicist
I had long wanted a biography of Paul Dirac, certainly one of the most elusive figures in 20th century science. The biographies prior to this one were typically just a brief collection of anecdotes -- stories which are by now so common in the literature that they have become cliches. Worse, discussions of his scientific work are typically done in such a manner as only to be of interest to specialists. This was frustrating for anyone who has read biographies of 20th century physicists, and I confess to having read a lot of them. There has got to be more to this man than anecdotes and equations, I told myself, but over the years nothing appeared. No one it seemed wanted to come close to the reality of Dirac, to create a sustained, coherent, and objective narrative of the man and his thinking. Until Farmelo. The wait was worth it. The result in an overwhelming book, all but impossible to put down.

I highly doubt you have ever read a scientific biography like this one. The hoary old cliche of "triumph and tragedy" should be retired after this book, the phrase doesn't begin to give Dirac's life justice. This is one grim, sad tale but it is also a remarkably balanced one. It is also a fascinating, brilliantly told, history of the times when Quantum Mechanics was born in the mid-twenties until the rise of of string theory six decades later. Highlights include the best description of the Kapitza affair I have ever read (when the great Russian physicist, after doing brilliant work at Cambridge, was forbidden by Stalin to leave Russia again, a state of affairs, despite the protests of his colleagues especially Dirac, that lasted for decades). The book also has the best description on Dirac's work and thinking for a non-specialist audience I have come across. And finally, most tellingly, it offers a close indeed painfully intimate understanding of the impact of his families (i.e., of origin and of marriage) on his life. This is a highly sympathetic and thoroughly readable account of what the man went through.

The only complaint I have is that writers who discuss the McCarthy Era really need to familiarize themselves with "Blacklisted by History," a book that by by dealing with original sources throughout clarifies greatly our understanding of the era.

Other than that, this book is unreservedly recommended. An outstanding job and one I think Dirac would have admired.