Paul Dirac was one of the greatest minds of the 20th century. Dirac is famous for a marvelous equation named after him: The Dirac equation, which connects special relativity and quantum mechanics. The equation also predicted the existence of anti-matter. Apart from quantum mechanics, Dirac made valuable contributions to the field of quantum electrodynamics. On this birth anniversary, let us learn some valuable life lessons from the English physicist.

Paul Dirac
Paul Dirac

1. All your struggles, over which you have no control, can prove to be a blessing in disguise.

Dirac had a miserable childhood. His parents hated each other. They were always at each other’s throats. So horrible was the family atmosphere that they didn’t even have a meal together. Paul had to take a meal with his dad, and his other siblings had to eat with their mother. His father was a strict person who wanted his son to speak French. In contrast, his mother wanted him to speak English. No one visited their house, and hence Paul once thought that males and females speak different languages!

He would be given punishment for committing mistakes while speaking French. All this had a great impact on Paul’s personality. He became an introvert. He didn’t like mixing with people and would surround himself with his own thoughts.

This is what proved to be a blessing in disguise for the young man. Years later, he would confess that this introverted nature is why he was able to concentrate on his ideas and prove new things. His solitude was one of the reasons for his success. His childhood miseries were not in his control, but they proved to be a blessing in disguise.

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2. Your knowledge is far more important than your degree

A professional scientist is considered to have more knowledge than a Ph.D. student. A Ph.D. student is believed to have more knowledge than a Master’s student and so on. To some extent, it might be true, but not always. Dirac had completely mastered quantum mechanics in 1924 and was already lecturing eminent scientists of that time. He was in close correspondence with Werner Heisenberg, whose theory he further developed using rigorous mathematics. Heisenberg was awestruck when he saw Dirac’s work. Dirac had already made a name in the world of quantum physics. It was after 2 years, in 1926, when he attained his Ph.D.

3. Work not for fame, awards and honors, but for your inner satisfaction

Dirac was a top-level introvert who didn’t like publicity. He worked almost around the clock. He wasn’t happy with how quantum mechanics was being formulated. Dirac had studied Einstein’s General Relativity and appreciated it for its mathematical beauty. He wanted to make quantum mechanics elegant, and for that, he worked day and night until he was satisfied.

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He never expected any reward in return for his work. Dirac wasn’t doing all this for recognition or honors, but for his own happiness and out of his own passion. He reluctantly accepted the Nobel Prize after being told by Ernst Rutherford that refusing it would create more publicity than accepting it. Nevertheless, he turned down most honors, including the knighthood offered to him in 1953.

Dirac holds a special place in the history of quantum mechanics. He really admired Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity for its mathematical beauty and elegance. He wanted to make quantum mechanics beautiful, and for that, he introduced the famous bra and ket notation for linear algebra. This notation made the mathematics of quantum mechanics quite compact. It also showed how important linear algebra is to the theory of quantum mechanics.

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Sajjad
Sajjad

One of the greatest intellectuals P.M. Dirac was…one who possessed the utmost clarity of vision went into his unsurpassed writing skills, nobody showed courage to write such a consistent style of logic. Three cheers for his unshakable faith in scientific truth!

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Rohit
Rohit

We want more articles like this… It helps a lot.

Waqas Khan
Waqas Khan

What a great coincidence with me?

Mark Harder

Putting this kind of positive spin on Dirac’s life struggles is a superficial, even misleading summary of his life. The current consensus of biographers is that Dirac was somewhere on the autism spectrum. He was not merely introverted. He was confused and sometimes crippled when interacting with important others in his life. His wife lamented that Paul was like his father in the way he failed to achieve an intimate bond with his own son. If Dirac wasn’t lonely and miserable, it was only because he could escape his reality by immersing himself in his work, as you so correctly point out. His story is quite typical of brainy people with Asperger’s, which is a crucial detail you should have pointed out. Though to be sure, encouraging young people with social problems like his is a worthy goal, a more complete description of his struggles and failures might have offered more insight to young readers with their own inner and interpersonal lives.

Imran
Imran

Yes he was….

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Arabinda mitra
Arabinda mitra

A good read indeed…nicely written..I enjoyed it just now..

Sabbir Hossain Riyad
Sabbir Hossain Riyad

That’s Great.

Taye
Taye

Dirac makes a great things for us to imagine relativistic QM………………

IMRAN
IMRAN
Reply to  Taye

Yeah, he was really great…

UBAID NASEER
UBAID NASEER

Paul Dirac was a fascinating character in Physics.

Shoukat Ali
Shoukat Ali

comprehensive lines about Dirac’s life. Great.

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