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Paul Dirac

Paul Dirac
OM FRS
Dirac 4.jpg
Dirac, photographed in 1933
Born Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac
(1902-08-08)8 August 1902
Bristol, England
Died 20 October 1984(1984-10-20) (aged 82)
Tallahassee, Florida, US
Residence United Kingdom
Nationality Swiss (1902–19)
British (1919–84)
Fields Physics (theoretical)
Institutions
Alma mater
Doctoral advisor Ralph Fowler
Doctoral students
Known for
Influences John Stuart Mill
Notable awards

Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac OM FRS (/dɪˈræk/; 8 August 1902 – 20 October 1984) was an English theoretical physicist who made fundamental contributions to the early development of both quantum mechanics and quantum electrodynamics. He was the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge, a member of the Center for Theoretical Studies, University of Miami, and spent the last decade of his life at Florida State University.

Among other discoveries, he formulated the Dirac equation which describes the behaviour of fermions and predicted the existence of antimatter. Dirac shared the 1933 Nobel Prize in Physics with Erwin Schrödinger "for the discovery of new productive forms of atomic theory". He also made significant contributions to the reconciliation of general relativity with quantum mechanics.

He was regarded by his friends and colleagues as unusual in character. Albert Einstein said of him "This balancing on the dizzying path between genius and madness is awful".


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Wikipedia

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