the strangest man the hidden life of paul dirac

This aptly-titled biography of the prominent 20th century British scientist, Paul Dirac, is an illustration of the point. Taking such terms seriously - except to dismiss them - is usually bad for human beings and other living things. Their primary function is one of propaganda, sometimes professional, often religious, always tendentious. We use such terms as if we knew what they mean but they are largely without any definite content. Scientific method, like human nature, is a term of approval or disapproval not a description of anything real. Moving, sometimes comic, sometimes infinitely sad, and goes to the roots of what we mean by truth in science.' Lord Waldegrave, Daily Telegraph 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. Farmelo shows a man who, while hopelessly socially inept, could manage to love and sustain close friendship. Through his greatest period of productivity, his postcards home contained only remarks about the weather.īased 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.

The youngest theoretician ever to win the Nobel Prize for Physics, he was also pathologically reticent, strangely literal-minded and legendarily unable to communicate or empathize. He was one of the leading pioneers of the greatest revolution in twentieth-century science: quantum mechanics. The Strangest Man is the Costa Biography Award-winning account of Paul Dirac, the famous physicist sometimes called the British Einstein. 'A monumental achievement - one of the great scientific biographies.' Michael Frayn

The strangest man the hidden life of paul dirac