The Strangest Man: The Hidden Life of Paul Dirac, Quantum Genius - Rilegato

Graham Farmelo

Rilegato

ISBN 10: 0571222781 ISBN 13: 9780571222780

Casa editrice: Faber and Faber, 2009

Riassunto

Paul Dirac was one of the leading pioneers of the greatest revolution in 20th-century science: quantum mechanics. One of the youngest theoreticians ever to win the Nobel Prize for Physics, he was also pathologically reticent, strangely literal-minded and legendarily unable to communicate or empathize. Through his greatest period of productivity, his postcards home contained only remarks about the weather. Based on a previously undiscovered archive of family papers, Graham Farmelo celebrates Dirac's massive scientific achievement while drawing a compassionate portrait of his life and work. Farmelo shows a man who, while hopelessly socially inept, could manage to love and sustain close friendship. 'The Strangest Man' is an extraordinary and moving human story, as well as a study of one of the most exciting times in scientific history.

Su questo libro

Recensione:

'Graham Farmelo has found the subject he was born to write about, and brought it off triumphantly. Dirac was one of the great founding fathers of modern physics, a theoretician who explored the sub-atomic world through the power of pure mathematics. He was also a most extraordinary man - an extreme introvert, and perhaps autistic. Farmelo traces the outward events as authoritatively as the inward. This is a monumental achievement - one of the great scientific biographies.' --Michael Frayn

'A must-read for anyone interested in the extraordinary power of pure thought. With this revelatory, moving and definitive biography, Graham Farmelo provides the first real glimpse inside the bizarre mind of Paul Dirac, Britain's Einstein, to explain how this great unsung national hero harnessed beauty to reveal the existence of anti-matter and even to glimpse the beginnings of string theory.' --Roger Highfield, New Scientist

'This is a beautifully written, remarkable biography of a remarkable man. It paints a sensitive portrait of his character, puts into words his science in a way that will capture every reader's attention and memorably conveys Dirac's achievement.' --Silvan Schweber

Descrizione del libro:

The spellbinding story of the man hailed as the greatest physicist since Newton.

Su questa edizione

• Editore: Faber and Faber
• Data di pubblicazione: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0571222781
• ISBN 13: 9780571222780
• Rilegatura: Copertina rigida
• Numero edizione: 1
• Numero di pagine: 560