Monday, March 14, 2011

The Strangest Man (eventually developed a sense of humor)

I am a lot like Paul Dirac, personality-wise (too much) if not in sheer genius. Niels Bohr once called him "The strangest man." Hence the title of the book.

This book was written in 2009, and I read it last year in 2010. It is far and away, given my interests, the greatest biography I have ever read. It's light on the Math, yet heavy on the man.

Pleasant bit: In his later years, Dirac had a sense of humor. I know what you're thinking: "He DID ?!?!"

Yes he did, and it's in the book. Basically he would take friends out canoeing and fishing in the swamps north of Pensacola in his later years, then ask them to stand up and see if they could see something, then rock the canoe so they fell in the water.

:-)

Funny guy! Not what you would imagine the uniter of Special Relativity and Quantum Mechanics to be. At all.

Well, better late than never, eh?

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