NP? Happy Aug 8 birthday, Paul Dirac

[Doug Millison]

http://www.bris.ac.uk/Depts/Info-Office/news/archive/dirac.htm

Bristol University will celebrate the centenary of the
birth of one of the greatest mathematical physicists
of the 20th century, Paul Dirac, with a series of
talks about his work and its application in research
today this Thursday, August 8. 

[...] Paul Dirac is probably second only to Einstein
in the originality of his work, and the breadth of the
applications which flow from it. He was a theoretical
physicist, with an important equation named after him
(the only equation on a memorial in Westminster
Abbey), and the 'inventor' of antimatter. His work on
quantum mechanics won him the Nobel Prize for Physics
in 1933. 

Born in Bristol, Dirac was educated at the Merchant
Venturers' College (now Cotham School) and Bristol
University. He graduated with a degree in Electrical
Engineering in 1921, and in Mathematics in 1923. He
then moved to Cambridge to study for a PhD, and later
became Lucasian Professor of Mathematics, the position
once occupied by Newton, and presently by Stephen
Hawking. He retired from Cambridge in 1969 and moved
to the Florida State University in Tallahassee, where
he died in 1984. 

Dirac's contributions to physics were many, including
putting the theory of quantum mechanics on a sound
mathematical footing. He also developed a version of
quantum mechanics for the electron, which was
consistent with Einstein's Relativity. He expressed
this theory mathematically in what we now call the
Dirac Equation. This was not only a beautiful piece of
mathematics and theoretical physics, but predicted
'positrons', which were discovered soon after. They
were the first example of antimatter. Although
antimatter is well known as the fuel of the Star Ship
Enterprise, it is not so well known that
anti-electrons are used every day in real life in
'Positron Emission Tomography', or PET scans. 

Dr Vincent Smith, a physicist at Bristol University
and one of the organisers of the centenary
celebrations, said: "Paul Dirac was a genius and was
probably a better mathematician than Einstein. 

"He will always be famous in the same sense that Isaac
Newton is famous and I am certain his physics will be
taught forever." [...] 


http://www.phy.bris.ac.uk/diracday.html

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