I met Paul Dirac, near the end of his life, when he was professor emeritus at Florida State University. I was a typist for the Physics Dept. in 1983, and I typed what may have been his last paper (or one of his last), an overview of the field of physics. I kept a Xerox copy for many years, and finally donated it to the organization that preserves his legacy. I remember him as being very cordial to me.
At the start, this account mentions, "Dirac believed that fundamental laws of Nature are found be expressed by 'pretty' equations", but this was not emphasized at the end. I was surprised by this, since Dirac held this belief more and more by the end of his life. To him, Truth had to beautiful, as his equation. His agnosticism became more the belief of a believer! We should remember his belief -- for he was probably right! :)
My favourite Dirac story comes courtesy of my old maths supervisor at Cambridge, who knew him personally. He recounted how he and his wife had entertained Dirac to dinner. As usual, Dirac said nothing the entire evening, but just sat there quietly observing the wife knitting, which he had never seen before but which clearly fascinated him. As he left at the end of the evening, he made a single remark: that there were just two distinct ways of creating a stitch. He was right, of course; but imagine having the kind of mind which could analyse knitting in the abstract and reach that conclusion!
@@ThatsWhenItkickedin There are other types of stitches but the wife was only using the basic two (a clockwise stitch & an anti-clockwise stitch that is reversed if you look from the other side of the knitted fabric). You can double (or multiple) wrap a stitch before pulling it through or add two stitches on one loop. There are hundreds of stitches but I know very little about knitting.
I'm gonna have to nominate Einstein's E=mc^2 as the most elegant and profound equation in all of math and physics. It states that mass can be converted to energy -- and the reverse -- energy can be converted to mass. This has enormous implications for the formation of the physical universe from the energy supplied by the Big Bang. Going in the opposite direction, we derive incredible amounts of energy from small amounts of mass that undergo nuclear reactions.
I'm an astrophysicist and long-time admirer of Dirac. This brief bio of his life was exceptionally well-produced; bravo, and thanks for giving one of my scientific heroes the attention he is due. As a personal story, I once was invited to a scientific meeting at Cambridge, and they housed us on campus, staying in what had been faculty chambers. The room I was given I was told was once Dirac's quarters. They didn't know of my long-time admiration of Dirac, so it wasn't planned; what an unexpected thrill! -Tom
@@ThomasJr I do not think so. I had very limited interaction with him. He would "Guest Lecture" our 2049 Physics with calc because there were things he liked to teach. He always struct me as a person who had multi-core processors at work in his brain. This was 1981
I was a student at FSU in 1982-1984. I saw him weekly at the Love and or Physics classrooms. Unless you knew who he was, he was just another older man who was incredibly nice and polite. Always a smile.
@@budsurtees4224 Whats funny is there are 26 UF Grads (My mom and dad) in my family circle. I grew up in Chiefland, raised in Orange and Blue diapers. I could not get out of there fast enough. They still are my # 2 team :)
@@louiserwin3726 Woah! So interesting! I was in them parts during those years, as a Gator. Chiefland, Newberry, Cross City, Trenton, Wilcox, Manatee Springs, Cedar Key - been through all of them. Had friends in Trenton who had a nice place in Cedar Key where I hung out a few weekends. I think I even had an "unfortunate" relationship with a Chiefland resident. Knew a Jack Erwin in Gainesville - any kin? Oh well, small world. Now I'm 9000 miles away from it all, but still follow and cheer for the Gators :-)
@@budsurtees4224 My family is from Otter Creek, actually they are Ellzey's, old Fl Circuit Rider Preachers(SR 24 to Cedar Key) :) I grew up at Fowlers Bluff on the Lower Suwanee. I live on the Wakulla now. With all that said, that area has EXPLODED. Hell the Gainesville Road from Trenton to Gville is 6 and 7 lanes. Chiefland has four times the people.. Take care, stay safe and good to hear someone from Gator Country
Sometimes I feel so sad that the life of such important and genius scintists go unnoticed, whereas the life of celebrities are celebrated by the masses
Lives of celebrities serve a purpose.. to make people forget their worries, a little steam letting after a tiresome day.. The lives of geniuses are celebrated too.. by those looking for the truth..
@@AshikurRahmanRifatI agree and maybe even more! I would expect to see an increase as time passes. We are just small people on giants shoulders, isn’t it? 😊
What no one is talking about is how young Dirac was when he published his paper on Dirac's Equation. He was only 26. Interestingly, Heisenberg was only 23 years old when he came up with is Uncertainty Principle. And Einstein was 26 when he published his theory of Special Relativity.
They are all young❤ Remember Jesus loves you so he died for you because he wants to know you❤ So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. John 8:36
Dirac achieved something very rare in physics - he theoretically predicted a new phenomenon (anti-matter) through pure math. Not only that, but much of the math of Dirac was derived earlier by the mathematicians Eli Cartan and Wilhelm Killing. They studied the symmetries of space, and found that rotations in 3d space are equivalent to rotations in a special 2d space. This allowed Dirac to take the "square root" of the Klein-Gordon equation, which produced a linear and relativistic quantum wave equation (the Dirac equation). Dirac found that his equation has two solutions, one for electrons and another for anti-electrons (positrons).
I am an electrical engineer and I become aware of Paul Dirac during the course of harmonic analyze. Dirac Delta function is one of the crucial elements of that, and it helped me to grasp the Fourier analysis much better sense...
Given that he was apparently a bit of a recluse, it is interesting to note that he spent 6 months in Calcutta (now Kolkata) in 1928 to discuss various aspects of quantum mechanics with Satyendra Nath Bose, after whom bosons are named. The name was given by Dirac himself, who also coined the name fermion for its opposite counterpart - particles that followed Fermi-Dirac statistics. His modesty in not naming them after himself was apparent.
he was the epitome of modesty, but physicists generally do not name things after themselves. Equations or ideas come to carry their name because other physicists speak of them that way. "Dirac's equation", later "the Dirac Equation". An interesting exception is E=mc^2. It did not come to be known as 'Einstein's equation', perhaps it was just so short its easy enough to say 'E equals m c squared'.
1. Bosons are INCORRECTLY named after Bose. Bose, unbeknownst to himself, created what are now know as Bose-Einstein Statistics (which really should just be called Bose Statistics). However, the Boson was 100% Einstein NOT Bose. They should be named after Einstein (but for interesting historical reasons aren't, the same way Dirac should have gotten credit for creating quantum field theory, not Feynman). To quote Professor Douglas Stone, head of Applied Physics at Yale, "Bosons weren't actually predicted by Bose, Bose, unwittingly created a new statistical framework to derive the planck's equation but he was unaware that what he was doing was novel. Even after his paper was published, Schrodinger, who read it, was unaware of any novel ideas in Bose's paper. It was Einstein who predicted Bose-Einstein Condensates, not Bose - who had nothing to do with it's prediction - and Boson's should be called Einsteinions but that may have been too much of a mouthful to pronounce." Reference: Einstein and the Quantum: The Quest of the Valiant Swabian (by Douglas Stone). Einstein predicted the Boson NOT Bose. And i suspect Dirac probably didn't derive much knowledge from speaking to Bose because Einstein, who sponsored Bose, had Bose's paper published when NOBODY ELSE WOULD (and got it translated into English even though German was the lingua franca of physics), wrote to other physicists pointing out how and why Bose's paper was original (even showing Schrodinger how Bose' new statistics was 1/3 not 1/2, the defining quality which separates BE Statistics from FD Statistics), got Bose a JOB a prestigious European university, and gave Bose an assignment in the new field of quantum mechanics (something to do with Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle and Matrix Mechanics, which was 100% Max Born, not Heisenberg, even though the latter typically gets credited with it). Bose, by his own admission, could not complete the assignment and within a few years of publishing his brilliant paper, was out of physics. By his own admission "I was like a comet." 2. Bose would have remained unknown for the rest of his life without Einstein. He had tried for months to get his paper published, but nobody of any repute would publish it. 3. Dirac coined the term Boson, but even HE didn't quite grasp the novelty of Bose's paper UNTIL Einstein wrote a primer on it explaining the novelty of what Bose had done. These are the reasons why we just call it BE Statistics and BE Condensates even though the former was 100% Bose and the latter (the Boson) was 100% Einstein. The more you know.... 😉
@@FredPlanatia I mean LOTS of equations are INCORRECTLY named after the wrong guy. We've found tons of equations for which the attribution PREDATES the person who was credited for it. Often MULTIPLE geniuses will think of an equation at roughly the same time independent of each other, but for strange historical reasons, one person will get credited for the discovery while the other person is ignored. I mean most people erroneously credit newton with the invention of calculus when Leibniz published it first and gave us the notation we STILL USE TODAY: dy/dx History is a funny thing. The Boson is named after Bose, but it should have been named after Einstein. The Raleigh Jeans Equation is another example. Sooo many equations are like this.
P.S. Dirac was VERY modest. And it should be noted that his most famous equation wouldn't have been possible without help from Oppenheimer and Hermann Weyl. But that's a story for another day. There is no such thing as a "lone genius." Not Archimedes, Not Newton, NOBODY is a lone genius. They all interacted with out geniuses and thinkers, they all corresponded with mentors and teachers and wrote letters to vet their ideas. We still have letters from Huyygens to Newton! Without Fermat and Descartes, Newton couldnt have done what he did.
Another perfect, yet sad example of how a wrong-headed parent screwed up their children's self-esteem. One son, dead by his own hand, the other, after decades of acclaim, only able to see his imagined failings. There's more to learn here than just the beauty and importance of Professor Dirac's equations. The science discussed in this interesting report is above my head -- not much I can do with it other than ponder its depths. The unspoken lesson here is one we can all learn from. I just hope that other viewers rethink how children are nurtured and raised.
@@paulbreen8533 You certainly may be onto something with your comment. Still, the father's behavior is no excuse. I'm reminded that Barbra Streisand was performing a concert in New York a number of years ago. Apparently, her mother was in the audience. Streisand looked toward her mother and said, "Am I pretty, Mama?" No need to remind you that at that point, Streisand had accomplished EVERYTHING, and yet, there's that parental implanted insecurity.
It's true ..My father also scared the shit out of me when I wasa children ..All though i have growned a lot now..but i am still afraid of people for no reason
Great video! Dirac stands immortal in the minds of many leaning towards science. Seeing him as an old man and experiencing his full journey is both sobering and insightful.
My Grandfather taught Dirac Mathematics at school in Bristol. I only learnt this fact when my eldest son was talking to my father one day and he happened to mention it. My son now has a PhD in Physics investigating Neutrinos.
That's special. I think in those days learners specialized early. The education system these days makes us study everything for most of our pre-college years. One needs to discover their passion and aptitude early in life and just pursue it rather than do everything.
I actually got a chance to meet Pierre Ramond. I bought a copy of this book on field theory, I did get it signed, and he spoke with the undergraduates, and told a few stories about direct. Some of this I was already familiar with. But it was a great video. this was after a major surgery where I had to learn how to walk again. So it was nice gift. I can see why Dirac and Ramond we’re good friends. Because even after meeting him for a couple hours, he was a very humble and kind man.
And Arnold Sommerfeld who found the dimensionless constant 1/137.06 , the supreme constant in physics, as 3.14159 is in space and 2.71828 is in number theory, both dimensionless. And de Broglie too.
A Dirac story I heard was that when he was visiting Stony Brook University, there was a snow storm. A graduate student was "asked" to please see if he could help shovel out Professor Dirac's automobile. When he arrived, he found the tires (tyres) frozen to the driveway, and the driveway coated with treacherous ice. It seems that Professor Dirac, whose experience was with Britain and Florida's milder winters had "helpfully" poured hot water from the "kettle" (i.e., "teapot" in 'Merican) around the tires where it had frozen solid.
In my undergraduate studies of quantum electrodynamics, Dirac and Feynman seemed to me to have the most intuitive understanding of the quantum world. Their genuis astounded me.
Don't' forget Julian Schwinger and Tomonaga! Every bit as smart as those aforementioned two. I agree with you though. Feynman and Dirac (and Einstein before them) had the most intuitive understanding of the quantum world. Remember, quantum entanglement was staring Schrodinger, Heisenberg, Dirac, Born, Bohr, etc, all in the face. It took Einstein in 1932 to point out that it was ENTANGLEMENT that was the truly bizarre property of quantum mechanics (and Einstein's EPR paper was basically ignored until John Bell's inequalities - but now forms the foundation of quantum information theory). Book recommendation for you. Einstein and the Quantum: The Quest of the Valiant Swabian by Douglas Stone.
Thank you, Cindy, for lifting up the life of Paul Dirac! I met him quite briefly near the end of his life, and his manner was very sweet and modest. He said that he regarded his own contribution to theoretical physics to reflect his luck to live in the "golden age of quantum mechanics", where new discoveries were like "low-hanging fruit". His theory, which was the first to synthesize quantum mechanics with special relativity, predicted the existence of an anti-particle simply as a particle propagating "backwards in time", as Richard Feynman characterized it. However, there was the confounding presence of infinite energy or mass in the theory, which took two more decades of theoretical physics development to explain away, resulting in what we now refer to as quantum electrodynamics, considered a triumph of theoretical physics. Dirac saw within his lifetime the maturation of his theory into the integration of the weak nuclear interaction with his own quantum electrodynamics to form a successful unified theory. He also witnessed its further development with gauge field theory, SU3, and the Standard Model. All before he passed away. My fond notion is that he could permit himself to let go of the label of "failure" by the end of his life. He certainly impressed me as a happy person. ~~~~Arthur Ogawa
We need more movies on life like these scientists. Just like they did it with Oppenheimer. The world needs to know these great people who ever lived on the same planet as us.
@varunnikam You do realize that movies and tv, have been shown to be the, "antimatter", of education. Yes its true that we better remember when emotion is entangled with learning. Personally, I prefer an actual physical book. Each to his/ her own I guess.
Am with you my friend. Tons of folk that are under shadowed by media. For media’s gain only. With the exception of Oscar Schindler and Allan Turin and charlotte grey. And others that have got through/ picked up. All wonderful humans . You are correct. The world needs to be aware of these underground genius’s. There place is secure in the archives, but that’s not the best place for them. Society needs to keep them front and center. Lest we forget . Go Jordan Peterson 👏🖖👌💕
8.06 One of the greatest photos ever taken in the history of Science. It must be very exciting to live during that era as there are legendary physicists working hard to de-mystify the inner workings of the cosmos.
If you like the history of quantum mechanics, you NEED to read Professor Douglas Stone's book. Einstein and the Quantum: The Quest of the Valiant Swabian by Douglas Stone
I can't recommend this book strongly or often enough for folks like you (and me!): "The Making of the Atomic Bomb," by Richard Rhodes. The amount of literature research involved in putting it together is nothing short of astounding. A typical Ph.D. thesis pales in comparison.
I am no physicist but during the covid, I tried my best to understand how he derived his equation from the relativistic equation. Indeed a genius. Would never have thought in a million lifetime to use matrices.
The Dirac matrices had actually been developed many decades before by mathematicians studying rotations in 3d space. Eli Cartan and Wilhelm Killing did it many years before Dirac. Oh and Dirac got help from Oppenheimer and Weyl.
What I think about his feelings about himself was that he was a truly humble and gracious man. That kind of success? Most of us would get so full of ourselves we'd be practically unbearable.
Beautiful video! Thanks. Few seconds more about the equation would have been even better, but I understand the need to balance elements for a better story telling to such a wide audience. I Just subscribed, looking for more ❤
This was presented so well that i could clap in applause. The production is so good and the line deliveries are great. They carry emotion with them while being so clear and proper. I went through this video learning about dirac from start to finish and feeling for him more and more. This is short but it may as well be whats typically a long format video anywhere because of how jam packed with information it is. This was beautiful. Thank you.
With such reliance on the convenience of modern technology, careful proofreading is a must. Nobody is immune to autocorrect errors. Perhaps a formal model of how autoINcorrect happens can be constructed, and explained by an elegant equation.
In Bristol there is a "Paul Dirac Trail", quite a lengthy walk taking you around places key to Dirac's life and future direction. Most commentators on Dirac's life put his success down to his initial engineering training ("engineer" not "technician" - there is a difference) that preceded his science degrees
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Paul Dirac is one of the scientists I would most have liked to meet, now and then, over a cup of coffee and the occasional word. The epitome of the quiet genius.
8:25 What an amazing collection of geniuses, the most influential and productive Physicists of all time. And look who is in the front row dead center anchoring the whole group.
Fun Fact: before shooting that photograph at the Solvay Conference, they were trying to figure out where everybody would stand. The group unanimously insisted that Einstein sit in the middle as the "crown jewel" of the coterie of geniuses. High praise indeed! Dirac was a huge fan of Einstein's - and the feeling was very mutual!
Dirac's view of religion is just like mine, i couldn't believe someone would have my exact view on religion . He was also a good human being, unlike some of the famous theoretical physicists at that time. I also love seeing the Dirac equation, as an aspiring theoretical physicist.
@kyintegralson9656 A good question. Maybe he was afraid his equations were not precise because they did not transform well? Even Lorenz did not believe in the physical reality of the transformation he proposed. Einstein was the first one who fully accepted what was implied by Maxwell's equations.
@@kyintegralson9656 I think he had not much time for that, i mean if hewas live at least till 1895 year quite possible reach this idea (maybe), but of course we don't know for sure.
@@gs-e2d Maxwell was arguably a better mathematician than Einstein, but still the scholar who within one year (1905) published the first unequivocal evidence for the existence of atoms (the Brown movement paper), first hard evidence of light quanta (photoelectric effect) and... produced the theory of relativity is practically a shoo-in for the title of the best physicist of his times.
When I look into the universe I see Paul's Dirac reflection back unto me, a positive reflection through space and time unto us as a reminder, he's still with us....thank you so much, precious moments in time, back to Dirac. about me, I'm not a physicist but I love physics. This touched my heart and I cried.
1) Calculus Foundations: Contradictory: Newtonian Fluxional Calculus dx/dt = lim(Δx/Δt) as Δt->0 This expresses the derivative using the limiting ratio of finite differences Δx/Δt as Δt shrinks towards 0. However, the limit concept contains logical contradictions when extended to the infinitesimal scale. Non-Contradictory: Leibnizian Infinitesimal Calculus dx = ɛ, where ɛ is an infinitesimal dx/dt = ɛ/dt Leibniz treated the differentials dx, dt as infinite "inassignable" infinitesimal increments ɛ, rather than limits of finite ratios - thus avoiding the paradoxes of vanishing quantities. 2) Continuum Hypothesis: Contradictory: Classic Set Theory Cardinality(Reals) = 2^(Cardinality(Naturals)) The continuum hypothesis assumes the uncountable continuum emerges from iterating the power set of naturals. But it is independent of ZFC axioms, and leads to paradoxes like Banach-Tarski. Non-Contradictory: Non-standard Analysis Cardinality(*R) = Cardinality(R) + 1 *R contains infinitesimal and infinite elements The hyperreal number line *R built from infinitesimals has a higher cardinality than R, resolving CH without paradoxes. The continuum derives from ordered monic ("monadic") elements. 3) Quantum Measurement: Contradictory: Von Neumann-Dirac collapse postulate |Ψ>system+apparatus = Σj cj|ψj>sys|ϕj>app -> |ψk>sys|ϕk>app The measurement axiom updating the wavefunction via "collapse" is wholly ad-hoc and self-contradictory within the theory's unitary evolution. Non-Contradictory: Relational/Monadic QM |Ψ>rel = Σj |ψj>monadic perspective The quantum state is a monadological probability weighing over relative states from each monadic perspectival origin. No extrinsic "collapse" is required. 4) Gravitation: Contradictory: General Relativity Gμν = 8πTμν Rμν - (1/2)gμνR = 8πTμν Einstein's field equations model gravity as curvature in a 4D pseudo-Riemannian manifold, but produce spacetime singularities where geometry breaks down. Non-Contradictory: Monadological Quantum Gravity Γab = monic gravitational charge relations ds2 = Σx,y Γab(x,y) dxdydyadx Gravity emerges from quantized charge relations among monad perspectives x, y in a pre-geometric poly-symmetric metric Γ, sans singularities. In each case, the non-contradictory formulation avoids paradoxes by: 1) Replacing limits with infinitesimals/monics 2) Treating the continuum as derived from discrete elements 3) Grounding physical phenomena in pluralistic relational perspectives 4) Eliminating singularities from over-idealized geometric approximations By restructuring equations to reflect quantized, pluralistic, relational ontologies rather than unrealistic continuity idealizations, the non-contradictory frameworks transcend the self-undermining paradoxes plaguing classical theories. At every layer, from the arithmetic of infinites to continuum modeling to quantum dynamics and gravitation, realigning descriptive mathematics with metaphysical non-contradiction principles drawn from monadic perspectivalism points a way forward towards paradox-free model-building across physics and mathematics. The classical formulations were invaluable stepping stones. But now we can strike out along coherent new frameworks faithful to the logically-primordial mulitiplicites and relational pluralisms undergirding Reality's true trans-geometric structure and dynamics.
Strangely I "met" PAM Dirac in Chemistry...I was impressed....so should we all... thank you for this great inspirational presentation of the most underrated genius
I would just like to say "Thank You!" for the very interesting presentation! Such a wonderful change from the all too prevalent, machine (mis-)read, machine translated, narrations attached to otherwise interesting subjects, that essentially make them intolerable to sit through! I found your speaking style to be both very clear, and accurate, and it was a pleasure to listen to! FWIW, somehow, despite UA-cam's best efforts to do me over for using an ad blocker, your video appeared in my feed and it was intriguing enough to click upon, and I am glad that I did! I will look for more from you in future! Cheers!
Interesting comment. I got the opposite impression. The voice is so even it seems automated, and during the brief moments when the narrator is shown, she seemed like an AI creation. Nevertheless, whether real or AI-assisted, the content is great!
The beauty of science can only be interpreted by us folks through the ingenuity of such scientists. The ways they think of everyday things is what we may consider poetry.
Immortality is something trully beautiful. I came here to watch a video of about physics and math, but instead, I've watched a love story about a boy who believed that he was incapable of love and changed the world... amazing.
he is a very humble man. High respect for him..as far as I know, his equation is like an upgraded version of Schrodinger equation by combining it with SR.
I was also in that mistake some time ago. In fact Dirac's equation is older than Schrödinger's and it's precisely the "failure" to achieve that unification that Dirac lamented, which has us putting up with the relatively "Newtonian" equation of the Austrian instead, which works but does not unify (nor can because it has linear time).
Paul Dirac was a GENIUS and one of the 5 greatest physicists ever. They claimed he was autistic, but that's idle speculation, never confirmed. The man essentially created quantum field theory without even being aware he was doing it (as Feynman later said). He was INCREDIBLE. Dirac Metals are really interesting too; I'm hoping you guys will cover that in a later video. However, this video is really bad click bait and I didn't really learn what makes an equation "beautiful." Calling ANY equation "the world's most beautiful equation" without first establishing the criteria of what makes ANY equation "beautiful" to begin with, is intellectually dishonest and insults the intelligence of your audience. This is a click-bait title, but I get it, you need the clicks and eyeballs. Euler's identity is traditionally considered the most "beautiful equation in the world" because it's ostensibly simple but encodes a lot of complexity within it (and it has wide applications). You made a whole video and I STILL don't know why it's more "beautiful" than Newton's law of gravitation or the Einstein Field Equations or Maxwell's EM equations. CLICK BAIT. Love your channel, but this video is silly. I still don't know what makes the Dirac equation "the most beautiful" lol. Why not do a wide historical sampling of ALL the equations in the history of mathematics that are considered by ACTUAL mathematicians to be the "the most beautiful equations," and then showing how Dirac's equation is in accord with the intellectual spirit of those other "beautiful equations." CLICK BAIT.
Why is the equation the most "beautiful equation in the world" ahead of, say, Euler's Identity? I love the channel, but it's title is kinda click baity.
I had no idea Dirac was a professor at Tallahassee, and that he died there in 1984. I was studying aeronautical engineering in Daytona at that time. It would have been cool knowing such a brilliant and influential man was so close to us.
It's heart breaking to watch this video. I had no idea it would present other things about him aside from his genius. The punishments from his father, the loss of his brother to suicide, and his apparent low self esteem.
Great narration. I stayed in Tallahassee for several months where my girlfriend was pursuing a phd in English at FSU. Compared to schools back northeast, i found FSU (and Tallahassee) so sterile...now i know better... I like the "A Beautiful Mind" parallels ..
I heard a funny story about Dirac when he was here at the University of Miami, in Coral Gables. I do not know if it is true, but if it is, it is very funny. The story says he had a penchant for taking coconuts from people's yards along his four-mile walk from his home in Coconut Grove to the university for which he finally got into trouble and was told to stop stealing coconuts. LOL
Thanks for the video, brings me back to my younger years when I loved studying the history of science and learning how humanity has steadily uncovered the mysteries of the universe.
Isn't it amazing that the world is driven by pure mathematics?! Dirac proved this perfectly! Even such giants of physics as Pauli and Heisenberg were not confident in Dirac's discovery. Thanks for the great video.
What Dirac did was an act of ingenuity. Today, admittedly, one would simply have to open a textbook on the representations of the rotation group, and copy and paste - if one is able to conceive the jargon of the mathematicians.
Thank you for presenting such an excellent biography full of insight into the life that shaped the mind of such a towering figure in physics. It's easy to forget that they are people too
A beautiful story. I see that many great minds battled with profound hardships and sufferings in life, undeterred and perhaps even because of these hardships, they shine anyway...
7:48 Fascinating! Thanks for the high quality explanation. I am yet to learn quantum mechanics and advanced physics! It's amazing that how Dirac was able to explain his discoveries in layman's language.
Absolutely one of the BEST videos I've see on UA-cam! Thank you for making this video and giving such a detailed explanation! This really is a beautiful equation and Dirac is, far from being a failure. I hope most people, nowadays, recognize his work as well!
That is exactly what you should not do. Keep doing what you are doing. Ifit doesn't pay well in monetary terms, there are more important things as I'm sure you well know.
There is no doubt about the great achievement of Dirac's spinor equation. On the other hand we should not forget that it is a differentiation of rotation more than a root of the D'Alembert operator. A rotation in 4D is an acceleration of a 4-vector. There are boost accelerations and rotational accelerations and both are rotations in Minkowsky spacetime of a unit vector. Dirac's idea can be also formalized as a geometrical equation without using spinors, as a deviation from geodesic motion. Such models must be based on events and not on particles, where "energy" appears where these events are accelerated. The Geometric Chronon Field Theory is one such example although it suffers from the prediction that not only the energy of the electric field generates gravity but also the charge itself does and with negative charge generating weak anti-gravity. Such a property is very difficult to measure because in high voltage capacitors, the dipoles in the dielectric layer are oppositely aligned with the external field and ruin any Hermann Bondi inertial/gravitational dipole. There should be a dynamic solution that involves both DC and AC so the theory can still be shown to correctly describe Nature or be refuted.
The double slit experiment is just the repulsive forces of the negative electrons (like charges repel) as the two emerging beams (after the slits) repel each other to create the pattern.
Which is, to me, the greater - the narrative or the factual content...another more importantly to me which blends both to create a wonderful video....entertaining. thanks
For most of those with high intelligence, like Dirac, 'are also Introverts'. Most Introverts are analytical ; they are problem solvers , trouble shooters, but also,,, experts at finding faults within themselves..! High intelligence is often accompanied by depression or at least anxiety , unlike most in society ; they cannot retreat into blissful ignorance......
People forget the magical Dirac delta or unit impulse function, infinite at the impulse point, 0 elsewhere, yet it has a unit area inside that arrow! Genius!
As french we thrive abroad not at home 🇨🇵.Dirac's father is the real example of how as french living abroad we love our language.But here in Paris my hometown people don't care much about the level of french you speak but some fancy words in english you utter. Voilà 🗼🇨🇵
My greatest dream is to meet these kind of people in my life, even at least once. I manage to educate myself to a point that i truly fell in love with physics, but my financial circumstances dictates that i should work to earn money. That killed all the hopes in me pursuing my dream of becoming a physicist. Now, i just work 8 to 5 just to live day by day. Without even knowing if i could be of service to mankind if only i pursued my dream Of becoming a physicist.
*What other biographies would you like to see?*
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Schrödinger!
Heisenberg, Zwicky, Pauli.
Pasteur
Heisenberg and ruder boskovich, pascal 17th century
Ruder boskovich. Among the giants of the 18th century human enquiry
I met Paul Dirac, near the end of his life, when he was professor emeritus at Florida State University. I was a typist for the Physics Dept. in 1983, and I typed what may have been his last paper (or one of his last), an overview of the field of physics. I kept a Xerox copy for many years, and finally donated it to the organization that preserves his legacy. I remember him as being very cordial to me.
At the start, this account mentions, "Dirac believed that fundamental laws of Nature are found be expressed by 'pretty' equations", but this was not emphasized at the end. I was surprised by this, since Dirac held this belief more and more by the end of his life. To him, Truth had to beautiful, as his equation. His agnosticism became more the belief of a believer! We should remember his belief -- for he was probably right! :)
Dirac was an atheist, you will claim Peter Higgs next. @@johnshuster9475
Beautiful!😊
How beautiful, you saw him and worked with him.
Now I want to c u
My favourite Dirac story comes courtesy of my old maths supervisor at Cambridge, who knew him personally. He recounted how he and his wife had entertained Dirac to dinner. As usual, Dirac said nothing the entire evening, but just sat there quietly observing the wife knitting, which he had never seen before but which clearly fascinated him. As he left at the end of the evening, he made a single remark: that there were just two distinct ways of creating a stitch. He was right, of course; but imagine having the kind of mind which could analyse knitting in the abstract and reach that conclusion!
Beautiful
Knit one, pearl two. He and his equation were beautiful. His life was not a failure
… but, what are they!?!? now i want to learn how to knit!
@@ThatsWhenItkickedin There are other types of stitches but the wife was only using the basic two (a clockwise stitch & an anti-clockwise stitch that is reversed if you look from the other side of the knitted fabric). You can double (or multiple) wrap a stitch before pulling it through or add two stitches on one loop. There are hundreds of stitches but I know very little about knitting.
I'm gonna have to nominate Einstein's E=mc^2 as the most elegant and profound equation in all of math and physics. It states that mass can be converted to energy -- and the reverse -- energy can be converted to mass. This has enormous implications for the formation of the physical universe from the energy supplied by the Big Bang. Going in the opposite direction, we derive incredible amounts of energy from small amounts of mass that undergo nuclear reactions.
I'm an astrophysicist and long-time admirer of Dirac. This brief bio of his life was exceptionally well-produced; bravo, and thanks for giving one of my scientific heroes the attention he is due. As a personal story, I once was invited to a scientific meeting at Cambridge, and they housed us on campus, staying in what had been faculty chambers. The room I was given I was told was once Dirac's quarters. They didn't know of my long-time admiration of Dirac, so it wasn't planned; what an unexpected thrill! -Tom
Hi am Lawrence from Kenya ,was wondering if you can help so that my discoveries in physics can be known
Sometimes , coincidence exceeds " randomness " and there maybe something else at play in our lives...?
Is it possible that he had autism?
@@ThomasJr I do not think so. I had very limited interaction with him. He would "Guest Lecture" our 2049 Physics with calc because there were things he liked to teach. He always struct me as a person who had multi-core processors at work in his brain. This was 1981
@@lawrencewamithi1416hello can we discuss?
I was a student at FSU in 1982-1984. I saw him weekly at the Love and or Physics classrooms. Unless you knew who he was, he was just another older man who was incredibly nice and polite. Always a smile.
Very close to his passing.
Those obnoxious 'Noles! Go Gators! lol ... just kidding.
@@budsurtees4224 Whats funny is there are 26 UF Grads (My mom and dad) in my family circle. I grew up in Chiefland, raised in Orange and Blue diapers. I could not get out of there fast enough. They still are my # 2 team :)
@@louiserwin3726 Woah! So interesting! I was in them parts during those years, as a Gator. Chiefland, Newberry, Cross City, Trenton, Wilcox, Manatee Springs, Cedar Key - been through all of them. Had friends in Trenton who had a nice place in Cedar Key where I hung out a few weekends. I think I even had an "unfortunate" relationship with a Chiefland resident. Knew a Jack Erwin in Gainesville - any kin? Oh well, small world. Now I'm 9000 miles away from it all, but still follow and cheer for the Gators :-)
@@budsurtees4224 My family is from Otter Creek, actually they are Ellzey's, old Fl Circuit Rider Preachers(SR 24 to Cedar Key) :) I grew up at Fowlers Bluff on the Lower Suwanee. I live on the Wakulla now. With all that said, that area has EXPLODED. Hell the Gainesville Road from Trenton to Gville is 6 and 7 lanes. Chiefland has four times the people.. Take care, stay safe and good to hear someone from Gator Country
Sometimes I feel so sad that the life of such important and genius scintists go unnoticed, whereas the life of celebrities are celebrated by the masses
Lives of celebrities serve a purpose.. to make people forget their worries, a little steam letting after a tiresome day..
The lives of geniuses are celebrated too.. by those looking for the truth..
True!
Paul Dirac will be rembered as long as humanity is alive .. Everything celebrity will be lost in time...
Very true, but I feel it has been that way since .. forever (more or less)
@@AshikurRahmanRifatI agree and maybe even more! I would expect to see an increase as time passes. We are just small people on giants shoulders, isn’t it? 😊
What no one is talking about is how young Dirac was when he published his paper on Dirac's Equation. He was only 26. Interestingly, Heisenberg was only 23 years old when he came up with is Uncertainty Principle. And Einstein was 26 when he published his theory of Special Relativity.
I mastered buttoning my shirt AND zipping my pants at 22. Take that DirHeisenStein!
@@kyintegralson9656 I learned to tie my shoe laces at 21. Sadly I've had no recognition for it until now.
The twenties seem to be a very fruitful period for male genius....not only in Physics !..
They are all young❤
Remember Jesus loves you so he died for you because he wants to know you❤
So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.
John 8:36
Dirac achieved something very rare in physics - he theoretically predicted a new phenomenon (anti-matter) through pure math.
Not only that, but much of the math of Dirac was derived earlier by the mathematicians Eli Cartan and Wilhelm Killing. They studied the symmetries of space, and found that rotations in 3d space are equivalent to rotations in a special 2d space. This allowed Dirac to take the "square root" of the Klein-Gordon equation, which produced a linear and relativistic quantum wave equation (the Dirac equation). Dirac found that his equation has two solutions, one for electrons and another for anti-electrons (positrons).
True! Rare but still in a very special club of few, huge, intellectual trees, in the forest of science (Einstein citation approximation 😊)
What is the "special" 2D space?
@@ClarkPotter The 2d space is special because its coordinates are complex numbers, not real numbers.
that is special, i feel special
Are you saying that Dirac's equation came from Hamiltonians?
I am an electrical engineer and I become aware of Paul Dirac during the course of harmonic analyze. Dirac Delta function is one of the crucial elements of that, and it helped me to grasp the Fourier analysis much better sense...
Given that he was apparently a bit of a recluse, it is interesting to note that he spent 6 months in Calcutta (now Kolkata) in 1928 to discuss various aspects of quantum mechanics with Satyendra Nath Bose, after whom bosons are named. The name was given by Dirac himself, who also coined the name fermion for its opposite counterpart - particles that followed Fermi-Dirac statistics. His modesty in not naming them after himself was apparent.
he was the epitome of modesty, but physicists generally do not name things after themselves. Equations or ideas come to carry their name because other physicists speak of them that way. "Dirac's equation", later "the Dirac Equation". An interesting exception is E=mc^2. It did not come to be known as 'Einstein's equation', perhaps it was just so short its easy enough to say 'E equals m c squared'.
@@FredPlanatia it's easy
1. Bosons are INCORRECTLY named after Bose. Bose, unbeknownst to himself, created what are now know as Bose-Einstein Statistics (which really should just be called Bose Statistics). However, the Boson was 100% Einstein NOT Bose. They should be named after Einstein (but for interesting historical reasons aren't, the same way Dirac should have gotten credit for creating quantum field theory, not Feynman). To quote Professor Douglas Stone, head of Applied Physics at Yale, "Bosons weren't actually predicted by Bose, Bose, unwittingly created a new statistical framework to derive the planck's equation but he was unaware that what he was doing was novel. Even after his paper was published, Schrodinger, who read it, was unaware of any novel ideas in Bose's paper. It was Einstein who predicted Bose-Einstein Condensates, not Bose - who had nothing to do with it's prediction - and Boson's should be called Einsteinions but that may have been too much of a mouthful to pronounce."
Reference: Einstein and the Quantum: The Quest of the Valiant Swabian (by Douglas Stone).
Einstein predicted the Boson NOT Bose. And i suspect Dirac probably didn't derive much knowledge from speaking to Bose because Einstein, who sponsored Bose, had Bose's paper published when NOBODY ELSE WOULD (and got it translated into English even though German was the lingua franca of physics), wrote to other physicists pointing out how and why Bose's paper was original (even showing Schrodinger how Bose' new statistics was 1/3 not 1/2, the defining quality which separates BE Statistics from FD Statistics), got Bose a JOB a prestigious European university, and gave Bose an assignment in the new field of quantum mechanics (something to do with Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle and Matrix Mechanics, which was 100% Max Born, not Heisenberg, even though the latter typically gets credited with it). Bose, by his own admission, could not complete the assignment and within a few years of publishing his brilliant paper, was out of physics. By his own admission "I was like a comet."
2. Bose would have remained unknown for the rest of his life without Einstein. He had tried for months to get his paper published, but nobody of any repute would publish it.
3. Dirac coined the term Boson, but even HE didn't quite grasp the novelty of Bose's paper UNTIL Einstein wrote a primer on it explaining the novelty of what Bose had done.
These are the reasons why we just call it BE Statistics and BE Condensates even though the former was 100% Bose and the latter (the Boson) was 100% Einstein.
The more you know.... 😉
@@FredPlanatia I mean LOTS of equations are INCORRECTLY named after the wrong guy. We've found tons of equations for which the attribution PREDATES the person who was credited for it.
Often MULTIPLE geniuses will think of an equation at roughly the same time independent of each other, but for strange historical reasons, one person will get credited for the discovery while the other person is ignored.
I mean most people erroneously credit newton with the invention of calculus when Leibniz published it first and gave us the notation we STILL USE TODAY:
dy/dx
History is a funny thing. The Boson is named after Bose, but it should have been named after Einstein. The Raleigh Jeans Equation is another example. Sooo many equations are like this.
P.S. Dirac was VERY modest. And it should be noted that his most famous equation wouldn't have been possible without help from Oppenheimer and Hermann Weyl.
But that's a story for another day.
There is no such thing as a "lone genius." Not Archimedes, Not Newton, NOBODY is a lone genius. They all interacted with out geniuses and thinkers, they all corresponded with mentors and teachers and wrote letters to vet their ideas.
We still have letters from Huyygens to Newton! Without Fermat and Descartes, Newton couldnt have done what he did.
Another perfect, yet sad example of how a wrong-headed parent screwed up their children's self-esteem. One son, dead by his own hand, the other, after decades of acclaim, only able to see his imagined failings. There's more to learn here than just the beauty and importance of Professor Dirac's equations. The science discussed in this interesting report is above my head -- not much I can do with it other than ponder its depths. The unspoken lesson here is one we can all learn from. I just hope that other viewers rethink how children are nurtured and raised.
Can you imagine if Dirac had the self-esteem of Heisenberg? He would have probably revolutionized science to levels we have not yet achieved!
well said and you are spot on.
Three of Wittgenstein's brothers took their own lives. It just may be connected to genius.
@@paulbreen8533 You certainly may be onto something with your comment. Still, the father's behavior is no excuse. I'm reminded that Barbra Streisand was performing a concert in New York a number of years ago. Apparently, her mother was in the audience. Streisand looked toward her mother and said, "Am I pretty, Mama?" No need to remind you that at that point, Streisand had accomplished EVERYTHING, and yet, there's that parental implanted insecurity.
It's true ..My father also scared the shit out of me when I wasa children ..All though i have growned a lot now..but i am still afraid of people for no reason
Great video! Dirac stands immortal in the minds of many leaning towards science. Seeing him as an old man and experiencing his full journey is both sobering and insightful.
My Grandfather taught Dirac Mathematics at school in Bristol. I only learnt this fact when my eldest son was talking to my father one day and he happened to mention it. My son now has a PhD in Physics investigating Neutrinos.
That's special. I think in those days learners specialized early. The education system these days makes us study everything for most of our pre-college years. One needs to discover their passion and aptitude early in life and just pursue it rather than do everything.
I actually got a chance to meet Pierre Ramond. I bought a copy of this book on field theory, I did get it signed, and he spoke with the undergraduates, and told a few stories about direct. Some of this I was already familiar with. But it was a great video. this was after a major surgery where I had to learn how to walk again. So it was nice gift. I can see why Dirac and Ramond we’re good friends. Because even after meeting him for a couple hours, he was a very humble and kind man.
Ahhh, celebrity, the true evolutionary benchmark.
Einstein, Dirac, Schrodinger, Heisenberg, Pauli, Bohr, Curie, Planc, Lorentz etc etc... it really was the golden age of Physics.
Born, Wigner, Von Neumann, Born, Oppenheimer, Weyl, etc. 🙂
And Arnold Sommerfeld who found the dimensionless constant 1/137.06 , the supreme constant in physics, as 3.14159 is in space and 2.71828 is in number theory, both dimensionless. And de Broglie too.
And Rutherford, nicknamed by his students "The Crocodyle" due to his behaviour.
Wonder why it slowed down
A Dirac story I heard was that when he was visiting Stony Brook University, there was a snow storm. A graduate student was "asked" to please see if he could help shovel out Professor Dirac's automobile. When he arrived, he found the tires (tyres) frozen to the driveway, and the driveway coated with treacherous ice. It seems that Professor Dirac, whose experience was with Britain and Florida's milder winters had "helpfully" poured hot water from the "kettle" (i.e., "teapot" in 'Merican) around the tires where it had frozen solid.
In my undergraduate studies of quantum electrodynamics, Dirac and Feynman seemed to me to have the most intuitive understanding of the quantum world. Their genuis astounded me.
Don't' forget Julian Schwinger and Tomonaga! Every bit as smart as those aforementioned two.
I agree with you though. Feynman and Dirac (and Einstein before them) had the most intuitive understanding of the quantum world.
Remember, quantum entanglement was staring Schrodinger, Heisenberg, Dirac, Born, Bohr, etc, all in the face. It took Einstein in 1932 to point out that it was ENTANGLEMENT that was the truly bizarre property of quantum mechanics (and Einstein's EPR paper was basically ignored until John Bell's inequalities - but now forms the foundation of quantum information theory).
Book recommendation for you. Einstein and the Quantum: The Quest of the Valiant Swabian by Douglas Stone.
Thank you, Cindy, for lifting up the life of Paul Dirac!
I met him quite briefly near the end of his life, and his manner was very sweet and modest. He said that he regarded his own contribution to theoretical physics to reflect his luck to live in the "golden age of quantum mechanics", where new discoveries were like "low-hanging fruit".
His theory, which was the first to synthesize quantum mechanics with special relativity, predicted the existence of an anti-particle simply as a particle propagating "backwards in time", as Richard Feynman characterized it.
However, there was the confounding presence of infinite energy or mass in the theory, which took two more decades of theoretical physics development to explain away, resulting in what we now refer to as quantum electrodynamics, considered a triumph of theoretical physics.
Dirac saw within his lifetime the maturation of his theory into the integration of the weak nuclear interaction with his own quantum electrodynamics to form a successful unified theory. He also witnessed its further development with gauge field theory, SU3, and the Standard Model. All before he passed away.
My fond notion is that he could permit himself to let go of the label of "failure" by the end of his life. He certainly impressed me as a happy person.
~~~~Arthur Ogawa
"All before he passed away." Good thing, cuz after would have been too late!
We need more movies on life like these scientists. Just like they did it with Oppenheimer. The world needs to know these great people who ever lived on the same planet as us.
@varunnikam
You do realize that movies and tv, have been shown to be the, "antimatter", of education.
Yes its true that we better remember when emotion is entangled with learning.
Personally, I prefer an actual physical book.
Each to his/ her own I guess.
@@snakezdewiggle6084love your response, there is no shortcut to LEARNING!
@bryanthegoat9593
Thank you, thars good of to say 😉
What are you currently studying.?
May I suggest you a channel called "Kathy Loves Physics & History". She has a lot of biographies of great scientists.
Am with you my friend. Tons of folk that are under shadowed by media. For media’s gain only. With the exception of Oscar Schindler and Allan Turin and charlotte grey. And others that have got through/ picked up. All wonderful humans . You are correct. The world needs to be aware of these underground genius’s. There place is secure in the archives, but that’s not the best place for them. Society needs to keep them front and center. Lest we forget . Go Jordan Peterson 👏🖖👌💕
8.06 One of the greatest photos ever taken in the history of Science. It must be very exciting to live during that era as there are legendary physicists working hard to de-mystify the inner workings of the cosmos.
Having studied Physical Chemistry in college I find these biographies of famous quantum mechanics heroes quite fascinating.
If you like the history of quantum mechanics, you NEED to read Professor Douglas Stone's book.
Einstein and the Quantum: The Quest of the Valiant Swabian by Douglas Stone
I can't recommend this book strongly or often enough for folks like you (and me!): "The Making of the Atomic Bomb," by Richard Rhodes. The amount of literature research involved in putting it together is nothing short of astounding. A typical Ph.D. thesis pales in comparison.
I am no physicist but during the covid, I tried my best to understand how he derived his equation from the relativistic equation. Indeed a genius. Would never have thought in a million lifetime to use matrices.
The Dirac matrices had actually been developed many decades before by mathematicians studying rotations in 3d space. Eli Cartan and Wilhelm Killing did it many years before Dirac.
Oh and Dirac got help from Oppenheimer and Weyl.
I'm moved that he finally found someone who would love him.
What I think about his feelings about himself was that he was a truly humble and gracious man. That kind of success? Most of us would get so full of ourselves we'd be practically unbearable.
Bravo! I was completely engrossed in this marvelous production. Truly enjoyed this program.
Your gentleness is as Brilliant as the stars.
Beautiful video! Thanks. Few seconds more about the equation would have been even better, but I understand the need to balance elements for a better story telling to such a wide audience. I Just subscribed, looking for more ❤
This was presented so well that i could clap in applause.
The production is so good and the line deliveries are great. They carry emotion with them while being so clear and proper. I went through this video learning about dirac from start to finish and feeling for him more and more. This is short but it may as well be whats typically a long format video anywhere because of how jam packed with information it is.
This was beautiful. Thank you.
I love it when anamolies in untested mathematics results in new discoveries, let alone something as big as anti-matter.
Excellent video with great delivery - thank you for sharing it!
You may want to fix the typo at 6:28 where it says "elections" instead of "electrons".
Noticed that too.
With such reliance on the convenience of modern technology, careful proofreading is a must. Nobody is immune to autocorrect errors. Perhaps a formal model of how autoINcorrect happens can be constructed, and explained by an elegant equation.
In Bristol there is a "Paul Dirac Trail", quite a lengthy walk taking you around places key to Dirac's life and future direction. Most commentators on Dirac's life put his success down to his initial engineering training ("engineer" not "technician" - there is a difference) that preceded his science degrees
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This is a highly awaited video for me. I would also recommend you to make a biography-style video about Max Born.
Paul Dirac is one of the scientists I would most have liked to meet, now and then, over a cup of coffee and the occasional word. The epitome of the quiet genius.
8:25 What an amazing collection of geniuses, the most influential and productive Physicists of all time. And look who is in the front row dead center anchoring the whole group.
Fun Fact: before shooting that photograph at the Solvay Conference, they were trying to figure out where everybody would stand. The group unanimously insisted that Einstein sit in the middle as the "crown jewel" of the coterie of geniuses.
High praise indeed! Dirac was a huge fan of Einstein's - and the feeling was very mutual!
There is so much junk on UA-cam, but every once in a while, I run across videos which are really very good. This is one of them. Thanks.
Dirac's view of religion is just like mine, i couldn't believe someone would have my exact view on religion . He was also a good human being, unlike some of the famous theoretical physicists at that time. I also love seeing the Dirac equation, as an aspiring theoretical physicist.
God is not a Man. God is Light(photon/information). Bible
There is Nothing Outside Yourself. Walter Russell, The Secret of Light
@@itsonlyapapermoon61
Those who tell you -don´t know
Those who know -wont tell you
what is his view on religion? is it mentioned in video where it is?
@@gs-e2d you can find it on the net. He basically said if God exists then why suffering is there , among certain other things
For someone as awkward as Paul Dirac, it is ironic that he predicted that every particle has a pair.
lmao
Most beautiful? This is a question of opinion. My favorite is Maxwell's equations. They made discovering relativity inevitable.
Why didn't Maxwell himself discover special relativity or, at least, the Lorentz transformation?
@kyintegralson9656 A good question. Maybe he was afraid his equations were not precise because they did not transform well? Even Lorenz did not believe in the physical reality of the transformation he proposed. Einstein was the first one who fully accepted what was implied by Maxwell's equations.
@@kyintegralson9656 I think he had not much time for that, i mean if hewas live at least till 1895 year quite possible reach this idea (maybe), but of course we don't know for sure.
@@maxotbekessov5919 I believe Einstein just had access to good papers and knowledge, while maxwell and others worked on hard maths.
@@gs-e2d Maxwell was arguably a better mathematician than Einstein, but still the scholar who within one year (1905) published the first unequivocal evidence for the existence of atoms (the Brown movement paper), first hard evidence of light quanta (photoelectric effect) and... produced the theory of relativity is practically a shoo-in for the title of the best physicist of his times.
I was lucky and got to meet Paul at FSU in 1975. His office was across-the-hall from my faculty advisor's and we became 'elevator friends'.
When I look into the universe I see Paul's Dirac reflection back unto me, a positive reflection through space and time unto us as a reminder, he's still with us....thank you so much, precious moments in time, back to Dirac. about me, I'm not a physicist but I love physics. This touched my heart and I cried.
I have a "good" scientific interest, but did not know about Dirac yet.
Thank you very much for making this video !
1) Calculus Foundations:
Contradictory:
Newtonian Fluxional Calculus
dx/dt = lim(Δx/Δt) as Δt->0
This expresses the derivative using the limiting ratio of finite differences Δx/Δt as Δt shrinks towards 0. However, the limit concept contains logical contradictions when extended to the infinitesimal scale.
Non-Contradictory:
Leibnizian Infinitesimal Calculus
dx = ɛ, where ɛ is an infinitesimal
dx/dt = ɛ/dt
Leibniz treated the differentials dx, dt as infinite "inassignable" infinitesimal increments ɛ, rather than limits of finite ratios - thus avoiding the paradoxes of vanishing quantities.
2) Continuum Hypothesis:
Contradictory:
Classic Set Theory
Cardinality(Reals) = 2^(Cardinality(Naturals))
The continuum hypothesis assumes the uncountable continuum emerges from iterating the power set of naturals. But it is independent of ZFC axioms, and leads to paradoxes like Banach-Tarski.
Non-Contradictory:
Non-standard Analysis
Cardinality(*R) = Cardinality(R) + 1
*R contains infinitesimal and infinite elements
The hyperreal number line *R built from infinitesimals has a higher cardinality than R, resolving CH without paradoxes. The continuum derives from ordered monic ("monadic") elements.
3) Quantum Measurement:
Contradictory:
Von Neumann-Dirac collapse postulate
|Ψ>system+apparatus = Σj cj|ψj>sys|ϕj>app
-> |ψk>sys|ϕk>app
The measurement axiom updating the wavefunction via "collapse" is wholly ad-hoc and self-contradictory within the theory's unitary evolution.
Non-Contradictory:
Relational/Monadic QM
|Ψ>rel = Σj |ψj>monadic perspective
The quantum state is a monadological probability weighing over relative states from each monadic perspectival origin. No extrinsic "collapse" is required.
4) Gravitation:
Contradictory:
General Relativity
Gμν = 8πTμν
Rμν - (1/2)gμνR = 8πTμν
Einstein's field equations model gravity as curvature in a 4D pseudo-Riemannian manifold, but produce spacetime singularities where geometry breaks down.
Non-Contradictory:
Monadological Quantum Gravity
Γab = monic gravitational charge relations
ds2 = Σx,y Γab(x,y) dxdydyadx
Gravity emerges from quantized charge relations among monad perspectives x, y in a pre-geometric poly-symmetric metric Γ, sans singularities.
In each case, the non-contradictory formulation avoids paradoxes by:
1) Replacing limits with infinitesimals/monics
2) Treating the continuum as derived from discrete elements
3) Grounding physical phenomena in pluralistic relational perspectives
4) Eliminating singularities from over-idealized geometric approximations
By restructuring equations to reflect quantized, pluralistic, relational ontologies rather than unrealistic continuity idealizations, the non-contradictory frameworks transcend the self-undermining paradoxes plaguing classical theories.
At every layer, from the arithmetic of infinites to continuum modeling to quantum dynamics and gravitation, realigning descriptive mathematics with metaphysical non-contradiction principles drawn from monadic perspectivalism points a way forward towards paradox-free model-building across physics and mathematics.
The classical formulations were invaluable stepping stones. But now we can strike out along coherent new frameworks faithful to the logically-primordial mulitiplicites and relational pluralisms undergirding Reality's true trans-geometric structure and dynamics.
In the previous video(John von Neumann) I wanted to ask for a video on Paul Dirac, strangely it was. One can only wonder at such brilliance.
Excellent, incisive and accurate.
Thanks!
You did an excellent job. Thank you for your efforts, you made Dirac human.
Strangely I "met" PAM Dirac in Chemistry...I was impressed....so should we all... thank you for this great inspirational presentation of the most underrated genius
this was interesting, i hadnt heard much about Dirac's life. also, I'd like to see a video about Ettore Majorana lol
I would just like to say "Thank You!" for the very interesting presentation!
Such a wonderful change from the all too prevalent, machine (mis-)read, machine translated, narrations attached to otherwise interesting subjects, that essentially make them intolerable to sit through!
I found your speaking style to be both very clear, and accurate, and it was a pleasure to listen to!
FWIW, somehow, despite UA-cam's best efforts to do me over for using an ad blocker, your video appeared in my feed and it was intriguing enough to click upon, and I am glad that I did! I will look for more from you in future!
Cheers!
Interesting comment. I got the opposite impression. The voice is so even it seems automated, and during the brief moments when the narrator is shown, she seemed like an AI creation. Nevertheless, whether real or AI-assisted, the content is great!
The beauty of science can only be interpreted by us folks through the ingenuity of such scientists. The ways they think of everyday things is what we may consider poetry.
Immortality is something trully beautiful. I came here to watch a video of about physics and math, but instead, I've watched a love story about a boy who believed that he was incapable of love and changed the world... amazing.
Umm, not really🤷
he is a very humble man. High respect for him..as far as I know, his equation is like an upgraded version of Schrodinger equation by combining it with SR.
I was also in that mistake some time ago. In fact Dirac's equation is older than Schrödinger's and it's precisely the "failure" to achieve that unification that Dirac lamented, which has us putting up with the relatively "Newtonian" equation of the Austrian instead, which works but does not unify (nor can because it has linear time).
Why am I giving more importance to the arguments of some people on the internet...
Great video. Dirac's relativistic electron equation is truly beautiful. I wish more people could appreciate its beauty and significance.
That remainds me of Wigner's description of Feynman: "He is another Dirac, only human this time."
Thank you for the simple definition of QM, "the science of the very small", got it.
Never thought a physics video could instill knowledge and evoke emotion like this. Well done!
Paul Dirac was a GENIUS and one of the 5 greatest physicists ever. They claimed he was autistic, but that's idle speculation, never confirmed. The man essentially created quantum field theory without even being aware he was doing it (as Feynman later said). He was INCREDIBLE. Dirac Metals are really interesting too; I'm hoping you guys will cover that in a later video.
However, this video is really bad click bait and I didn't really learn what makes an equation "beautiful." Calling ANY equation "the world's most beautiful equation" without first establishing the criteria of what makes ANY equation "beautiful" to begin with, is intellectually dishonest and insults the intelligence of your audience.
This is a click-bait title, but I get it, you need the clicks and eyeballs. Euler's identity is traditionally considered the most "beautiful equation in the world" because it's ostensibly simple but encodes a lot of complexity within it (and it has wide applications).
You made a whole video and I STILL don't know why it's more "beautiful" than Newton's law of gravitation or the Einstein Field Equations or Maxwell's EM equations.
CLICK BAIT. Love your channel, but this video is silly. I still don't know what makes the Dirac equation "the most beautiful" lol.
Why not do a wide historical sampling of ALL the equations in the history of mathematics that are considered by ACTUAL mathematicians to be the "the most beautiful equations," and then showing how Dirac's equation is in accord with the intellectual spirit of those other "beautiful equations."
CLICK BAIT.
Fair point. And you gave me a great idea to work on a vid about Newton and gravity
Thank you! Best Dirac presentation I’ve seen yet. ❤👍🏽💯
Thank you so much for the support!
Why is the equation the most "beautiful equation in the world" ahead of, say, Euler's Identity?
I love the channel, but it's title is kinda click baity.
the way you narrate is very peaceful 🙏🙏😍😍
One of the best voices I have heard in a while.
I had no idea Dirac was a professor at Tallahassee, and that he died there in 1984. I was studying aeronautical engineering in Daytona at that time. It would have been cool knowing such a brilliant and influential man was so close to us.
It's heart breaking to watch this video. I had no idea it would present other things about him aside from
his genius. The punishments from his father, the loss of his brother to suicide, and his
apparent low self esteem.
Thank you! This was a wonderful short biography of a legendary man in Physics!
Great narration.
I stayed in Tallahassee for several months where my girlfriend was pursuing a phd in English at FSU. Compared to schools back northeast, i found FSU (and Tallahassee) so sterile...now i know better...
I like the "A Beautiful Mind" parallels ..
I heard a funny story about Dirac when he was here at the University of Miami, in Coral Gables. I do not know if it is true, but if it is, it is very funny. The story says he had a penchant for taking coconuts from people's yards along his four-mile walk from his home in Coconut Grove to the university for which he finally got into trouble and was told to stop stealing coconuts. LOL
Thanks for the video, brings me back to my younger years when I loved studying the history of science and learning how humanity has steadily uncovered the mysteries of the universe.
12:48 That looks like one of the lecture halls in the science building at the University of Miami. In fact, on closer inspection, it is definitely so.
Truly brings a human touch. We see the work but never the person. Thank u
The video clearly didn't explain why it was the most beautiful equation.
I mean, Dirac is crazy underrated don't get me wrong but no equation could ever top Euler's identity.
ok, ok...
Superb dissertation ! Thank you. 😀
Thank you for sharing this story.
Great piece, loved the calm and soothing narration.
Isn't it amazing that the world is driven by pure mathematics?! Dirac proved this perfectly! Even such giants of physics as Pauli and Heisenberg were not confident in Dirac's discovery. Thanks for the great video.
What an absolutely great man! Thanks for the amazing video :)
What Dirac did was an act of ingenuity. Today, admittedly, one would simply have to open a textbook on the representations of the rotation group, and copy and paste - if one is able to conceive the jargon of the mathematicians.
Excellent Video and narration.
Thank you for presenting such an excellent biography full of insight into the life that shaped the mind of such a towering figure in physics. It's easy to forget that they are people too
A beautiful story. I see that many great minds battled with profound hardships and sufferings in life, undeterred and perhaps even because of these hardships, they shine anyway...
Hi Cindy! Great narration on one of my favourite subjects and physicists.
I don't understand such things as this; but I look forward to the day that I will...
Very good, heartening info.Thanks.
7:48 Fascinating! Thanks for the high quality explanation. I am yet to learn quantum mechanics and advanced physics! It's amazing that how Dirac was able to explain his discoveries in layman's language.
Dirac's work even provided the 'maguffin ' for the "Cities in Flight" novels by James Blish.
Absolutely one of the BEST videos I've see on UA-cam! Thank you for making this video and giving such a detailed explanation! This really is a beautiful equation and Dirac is, far from being a failure. I hope most people, nowadays, recognize his work as well!
I walk pass Dirac's house in Monk Road, Bristol regularly....Interesting video.
Your voice is amazing. You should rent it to big media companies❤
That is exactly what you should not do. Keep doing what you are doing. Ifit doesn't pay well in monetary terms, there are more important things as I'm sure you well know.
There is no doubt about the great achievement of Dirac's spinor equation. On the other hand we should not forget that it is a differentiation of rotation more than a root of the D'Alembert operator. A rotation in 4D is an acceleration of a 4-vector. There are boost accelerations and rotational accelerations and both are rotations in Minkowsky spacetime of a unit vector. Dirac's idea can be also formalized as a geometrical equation without using spinors, as a deviation from geodesic motion. Such models must be based on events and not on particles, where "energy" appears where these events are accelerated. The Geometric Chronon Field Theory is one such example although it suffers from the prediction that not only the energy of the electric field generates gravity but also the charge itself does and with negative charge generating weak anti-gravity. Such a property is very difficult to measure because in high voltage capacitors, the dipoles in the dielectric layer are oppositely aligned with the external field and ruin any Hermann Bondi inertial/gravitational dipole. There should be a dynamic solution that involves both DC and AC so the theory can still be shown to correctly describe Nature or be refuted.
That was comforting. And really good.
Thanks for the very well made, beautiful video.
The double slit experiment is just the repulsive forces of the negative electrons (like charges repel) as the two emerging beams (after the slits) repel each other to create the pattern.
Which is, to me, the greater - the narrative or the factual content...another more importantly to me which blends both to create a wonderful video....entertaining. thanks
One of my all-time favourite guys from Physics.
For most of those with high intelligence, like Dirac, 'are also Introverts'. Most Introverts are analytical ; they are problem solvers , trouble shooters, but also,,, experts at finding faults within themselves..! High intelligence is often accompanied by depression or at least anxiety , unlike most in society ; they cannot retreat into blissful ignorance......
People forget the magical Dirac delta or unit impulse function, infinite at the impulse point, 0 elsewhere, yet it has a unit area inside that arrow! Genius!
As french we thrive abroad not at home 🇨🇵.Dirac's father is the real example of how as french living abroad we love our language.But here in Paris my hometown people don't care much about the level of french you speak but some fancy words in english you utter. Voilà 🗼🇨🇵
Thank you Cindy!
Love these.
Do some biologists in the future!
Thanks for this very good video about Paul Dirac's life and works.
Dirac only left an answer on the question: "What is mass and charge from Theory?" GR+TD possibly does
"All things being equal..." Nothing is equal.
Dirac equations represent an universe of it's own.
My greatest dream is to meet these kind of people in my life, even at least once. I manage to educate myself to a point that i truly fell in love with physics, but my financial circumstances dictates that i should work to earn money. That killed all the hopes in me pursuing my dream of becoming a physicist. Now, i just work 8 to 5 just to live day by day. Without even knowing if i could be of service to mankind if only i pursued my dream Of becoming a physicist.