Graham Farmelo > Quotes

“During the meeting in Delhi with Dirac on 12 January 1955, Nehru asked him if he had any recommendations for the future of the new republic of India. After his usual reflective pause, Dirac replied: ‘A common language, preferably English. Peace with Pakistan. The metric system.”
― Graham Farmelo, The Strangest Man: The Hidden Life of Paul Dirac, Quantum Genius

“When Dirac was an old man, younger physicists often asked him how he felt when he discovered the [Dirac] equation. From his replies, it seems that he alternated between ecstasy and fear: although elated to have solved his problem so neatly, he worried that he would be the latest victim of the 'great tragedy of science' described in 1870 by Thomas Huxley; 'the slaying of a beautiful theory by an ugly fact'. Dirac later confessed that his dread of such an outcome was so intense that he was 'too scared' to use it to make detailed predictions of the energy levels of atomic hydrogen - a test that he knew it had to pass. He did an approximate version of the calculation and showed that there was acceptable agreement but did not go on to risk failure by subjecting his theory to a more rigorous examination.”
― Graham Farmelo, The Strangest Man: The Hidden Life of Paul Dirac, Mystic of the Atom

“I have heard experimental physicist complain sotto voce that some of the best theoreticians have largely stopped doing physics and started to indulge in what is sometimes described as 'mathematical masturbation'.”
― Graham Farmelo, The Universe Speaks in Numbers: How Modern Maths Reveals Nature's Deepest Secrets

“Dirac said nothing to his fellow pedestrians, but Kierkegaard would startle some of them by interrogating them about some subject on his mind, following in the tradition of Socrates, whom he called ‘the virtuoso of the casual encounter’.”
― Graham Farmelo, The Strangest Man: The Hidden Life of Paul Dirac, Mystic of the Atom

“It is only human for physicists to be disappointed that decades of preparation have not yet led to experimental discoveries. Yet nature is under no obligation to reward every generation of physicists with another helping of it's juiciest secrets, along with the fulfilment that also follows, not to mention the approbation.”
― Graham Farmelo, The Universe Speaks in Numbers: How Modern Maths Reveals Nature's Deepest Secrets

“All scientists”
― Graham Farmelo, The Strangest Man: The Hidden Life of Paul Dirac, Mystic of the Atom

“Trenchancy”
― Graham Farmelo, The Strangest Man: The Hidden Life of Paul Dirac, Mystic of the Atom

“Dirac... who had arrived in Cambridge as a political innocent heard for the first time the claim that Marxism offered an all-embracing scientific theory that could do for society what Newton had done for science. According to this vision, every economy could be the test bed for a theory that promised a brighter future, with intelligent planning taking the place of the sometimes cruel, invisible hand of market forces.”
― Graham Farmelo, The Strangest Man: The Hidden Life of Paul Dirac, Mystic of the Atom

“STALIN: You”
― Graham Farmelo, The Strangest Man: The Hidden Life of Paul Dirac, Mystic of the Atom

“In America”
― Graham Farmelo, The Strangest Man: The Hidden Life of Paul Dirac, Mystic of the Atom

“As Bohr liked to point out”
― Graham Farmelo, The Strangest Man: The Hidden Life of Paul Dirac, Mystic of the Atom

“Hoyle found the idea of the Big Bang distasteful and compared the notion of the universe emerging out of nothing to a ‘party girl’ jumping out of a cake: ‘it just wasn’t dignified or elegant’.20”
― Graham Farmelo, The Strangest Man: The Hidden Life of Paul Dirac, Mystic of the Atom

“Heisenberg long remembered being asked by Dirac, ‘Why do you dance?’ After Heisenberg replied, reasonably enough, ‘When there are nice girls it is a pleasure to dance,’ Dirac looked thoughtful. After about five minutes of silence, he said, ‘Heisenberg, how do you know beforehand that the girls are nice?’19”
― Graham Farmelo, The Strangest Man: The Hidden Life of Paul Dirac, Mystic of the Atom

“The successful development of science requires a proper balance to be maintained berween the method of building up from observations and the method of deducing by pure reasoning from speculative assumptions”
― Graham Farmelo, The Strangest Man: The Hidden Life of Paul Dirac, Mystic of the Atom

“Few misfortunes can befall a boy which bring worse consequences than to have a really affectionate mother. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM”
― Graham Farmelo, The Strangest Man: The Hidden Life of Paul Dirac, Mystic of the Atom

“In science, you want to say something nobody knew before, in words everyone can understand. In poetry, your are bound to say something that every one knows already in words that nobody can understand”
― Graham Farmelo, The Strangest Man: The Hidden Life of Paul Dirac, Mystic of the Atom

“I hope it will not shock experimental physicists too much if I say that we do not accept their observations unless they are confirmed by theory. SIR ARTHUR EDDINGTON”
― Graham Farmelo, The Strangest Man: The Hidden Life of Paul Dirac, Mystic of the Atom

“Dirac begins by considering belief. Some of the things a person believes in”
― Graham Farmelo, The Strangest Man: The Hidden Life of Paul Dirac, Mystic of the Atom

“International politics were not Dirac’s only distraction. He was also turning his attention to moral philosophy”
― Graham Farmelo, The Strangest Man: The Hidden Life of Paul Dirac, Mystic of the Atom

“Einstein’s aphorism Raffiniert ist der Herr Gott”
― Graham Farmelo, The Strangest Man: The Hidden Life of Paul Dirac, Mystic of the Atom