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List of Paul Dirac Quotes

Explore our hand-picked selection of 51 inspiring quotes by Paul Dirac.

About Paul Dirac

  • Born: August 8, 1902
  • Died: October 20, 1984
  • Occupation: Physicist
    • A book on the new physics, if not purely descriptive of experimental work, must essentially be mathematical.
    Book Math Physics
    Well, in the first place, it leads to great anxiety as to whether it's going to be correct or not ... i expect that's the dominating feeling. it gets to be rather a fever... at age 60, when asked about his feelings on discovering the dirac equation.
    Science Anxiety Feelings
    Theoretical physicists accept the need for mathematical beauty as an act of faith... for example, the main reason why the theory of relativity is so universally accepted is its mathematical beauty.
    Science Example Needs
    I think it is a peculiarity of myself that i like to play about with equations, just looking for beautiful mathematical relations which maybe don't have any physical meaning at all. sometimes they do. at age 60.
    Beautiful Science Thinking
    I learnt to distrust all physical concepts as the basis for a theory. instead one should put one's trust in a mathematical scheme, even if the scheme does not appear at first sight to be connected with physics. one should concentrate on getting interesting mathematics.
    Science Sight Interesting
    The methods of theoretical physics should be applicable to all those branches of thought in which the essential features are expressible with numbers.
    Numbers Theoretical Physics Essentials
    I do not see how a man can work on the frontiers of physics and write poetry at the same time. they are in opposition.
    Writing Men Physics
    Renormalization is just a stop-gap procedure. there must be some fundamental change in our ideas, probably a change just as fundamental as the passage from bohr's orbit theory to quantum mechanics. when you get a number turning out to be infinite which ought to be finite, you should admit that there is something wrong with your equations, and not hope that you can get a good theory just by doctoring up that number.
    Ideas Numbers Orbit
    It is more important to have beauty in one's equations than to have them fit experiment... it seems that if one is working from the point of view of getting beauty in one's equations, and if one has really a sound insight, one is on a sure line of progress. if there is not complete agreement between the results of one's work and experiment, one should not allow oneself to be too discouraged, because the discrepancy may well be due to minor features that are not properly taken into account and that will get cleared up with further developments of the theory.
    Taken Science Views
    It seems that if one is working from the point of view of getting beauty in one's equations, and if one has really a sound insight, one is on a sure line of progress.
    Views Mathematical Equations Progress
    I think it is the general rule that the originator of a new idea is not the most suitable person to develop it, because his fears of something going wrong are really too strong... at age 69.
    Strong Thinking Ideas
    The research worker, in his efforts to express the fundamental laws of nature in mathematical form, should strive mainly for mathematical beauty. he should take simplicity into consideration in a subordinate way to beauty ... it often happens that the requirements of simplicity and beauty are the same, but where they clash, the latter must take precedence.
    Science Law Simplicity
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