Three Important Life Lessons To Learn From Paul Dirac

Rishabh Nakra

Admin and Founder of ‘The Secrets Of The Universe’ and former intern at Indian Institute of Astrophysics, Bangalore, I am a science student pursuing a Master’s in Physics from India. I love to study and write about Stellar Astrophysics, Relativity & Quantum Mechanics.

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.

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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