| The Strangest Man: The Life of Paul Dirac |  | Author: Dr Graham Farmelo
Publisher: Faber and Faber
Category: Book
List Price: £9.99
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Seller: smeikalbooks
Rating:  41 reviews
Sales Rank: 1,819
Media: Paperback
Pages: 560
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 7.6 x 5 x 1.6
ISBN: 0571222862
EAN: 9780571222865
Publication Date: January 7, 2010
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Paul Dirac was one of the leading pioneers of the greatest revolution in 20th-century science: quantum mechanics. Based on an archive of family papers, this title celebrates Dirac's massive scientific achievement while drawing a portrait of his life and work.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 41
 Excellent read July 27, 2010
C. Parkinson (Preston, England)
Reading about a genius, whatever his quirks, is always enjoyable and this is no exception. It is also very well written.
A lonely life ? June 20, 2010
Steve Taylor (Manchester UK)
Who's to know ? Dirac probably had what we now describe as an "autistic spectrum disorder", and did his father, and brother. I found Farmelo's book a rather poignant view of the life of a certainly strange man. The development of the man from baby to redundant Grand Old man is well handled. The deep mathematical complexity of Dirac's work is described well, at the level any layman who tackled " a brief history of time" will find a breeze !
Was Dirac's life as lonely as one might think ? His marriage came as a surprise to his colleagues (friends ? Did he have any, apart from Pyotr Kapitsa ?), but he recognised that it completed him as a human being - even though he remained reclusive, even at home.
Put the Book of Dirac with Gleickman's life of Richard Feynman, then Feynman's own books about himself, and compare with the "man who loved only numbers" - the book about the brilliant Mathematician Paul Erdos to get an understanding of what drives brilliant and eccentric men.
Good read - even for non physicists May 8, 2010
Ashley W. Roughton (London, UK)
Dirac was undoubtedly a genius. He was also a very difficult man and there is much behind his genius which explains him as a mathematician. His relationship with his parents, his brother and sister and his wife Manci are beautifully explained in this well written book. His personal relationships with Bohr, Heisenberg, Schrodinger and Kapitsa are also well researched. The relationship between them as people as well as scientists is forcefully put and explains (well) how Dirac worked.
I would recommend this book to anybody - you do not need a science degree (or one in rocket science - as they say) to understand it or to be able to read it. The prose and writing style also make it a very easy read.
The introduction is particularly gripping. A few words, spoken in anger or at least in haste about his family, by Dirac at the end of his life are recounted and analysed. The mysterious nature of this man is thus made clear at the very start. You read on to find out what happened. An old gambit perhaps but effective.
Overall this book whilst delving into Dirac the mathematician also looks at him as a man, of formidable intellect, living his life.
A fascinating biography April 28, 2010
M. F. Cayley (Hampshire, UK)
This is a fascinating biography of one of the great figures of 20th century science. On the human level, it is an engrossing portrait of someone who came from a dysfunctional family and who found human relationships difficult, and gives an insight into rivalries in the scientific community. Side by side with this the book gives a clear view of some key developments in particle physics, and of Dirac's major contributions, while acknowledging where Dirac's thinking was misguided. For me, this is one of the best books to have appeared in the last few years.
Excellent biography - the full life and work of Paul Dirac April 18, 2010
John Holland (Surrey, UK)
This is one of those rare biographies of a scientist that leaves the reader feeling satisfied that they have been given a flavour of both the subject's work and life. Considering that Dirac was one of the leaders of the the early development of quantum mechanics, this is some achievement.
The biography covers the whole of Dirac's life, from school in Bristol through his time in Cambridge to retirement in Florida, highlighting his achievements in the early years of quantum theory and some of the challenges to his thinking in later years. The author covers his friendhsips, the (often strained) relationships with others in the physics community, and links this to his family background. The difficult subjects (death of his brother and relationship with his father) are treated with great sympathy.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 41
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