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.
Read an extract from the book on the Guardian's website
Reviews
The Guardian
Georgina Ferry
"Graham Farmelo succeeds brilliantly in bringing this shadowy figure into three dimensions... In many ways Dirac matched the hackneyed stereotype of the lone genius all too well, but Farmelo has been scrupulous in balancing his originality with the scientific debts he owed to others. Indeed, he shows theoretical physics to have been a surprisingly sociable field, with all the key players on a merry-go-round of visits to try out their theories on each other."
14/02/2009
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The Literary Review
John Gribbin
"Graham Farmelo done something I thought impossible – he has written an interesting account for the lay person of the life of Paul Dirac... [his] skill is to weave the two aspects of Dirac’s character together, telling us just enough about the physics to make it clear how important Dirac’s contribution was without overburdening us, and just enough about his oddities to be intriguing without being repetitive... [A] superb book"
01/12/2008
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The New Statesman
Brian Cathcart
"...a marvellously rich and intimate study which, if anything can do it, should finally get people talking about this great 20th-century Briton the way he deserves to be talked about. Few who knew Dirac would have expected much evidence about the private man to have survived, or even to have been committed to paper in the first place, yet Farmelo is able to lead us through his often-troubled life with a fullness of detail that might even satisfy a psychoanalyst."
29/01/2009
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The Times
Prof. Peter Higgs
"Farmelo's account of Dirac's...career as a member of the international community of theoretical physicists makes fascinating reading for anyone, like myself, with a similar background. For me it has fleshed out the story of a period in which a revolution in the way that we understand the physical world took place... Graham Farmelo has done a splendid job of portraying Dirac and his world. The biography is a major achievement."
27/02/2009
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The Observer
Robin McKie
"Farmelo is ... to be congratulated for reminding us of the scientist's remarkable achievements and for producing such a well-researched and insightful biography. The book does have flaws, however, with Farmelo indulging in some odd, infelicitous turns of phrase: "He was her Elvis and she was his Colonel Parker," is his strange summing up of Dirac's marriage... These are minor drawbacks, however, and do not undermine a magnificent biography"
01/02/2009
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The Daily Telegraph
Helen Brown
"[An] infinitely intriguing biography... As Farmelo follows the ricocheting sparks of genius around the globe we meet Schrödinger (with whom Dirac shared the 1933 Nobel Prize) bursting with braggadocio. Oppenheimer, depressed at Cambridge and poisoning a rival’s apple. Heisenberg, who Dirac’s mother thought a “terrible flirt”. Even those of us who struggle to process the group’s discoveries (and it’s a relief to hear that Einstein had trouble) will be gripped by their competitive fraternity. "
23/01/2009
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The Sunday Times
John Carey
"...the tittle-tattle of Dirac's daily life is ultimately irrelevant. What matters is his thought, and from that the majority of readers will inevitably feel excluded. It is not Farmelo's fault... The fascination of Farmelo's book lies in its earlier chapters, which challenge us with the paradox of a mind at once maimed and mighty."
11/01/2009
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The London Review of Books
David Kaiser
"Farmelo marches through several traits commonly associated with autism ... adding each time that the appearance of similar traits in Dirac was probably not coincidental. In the end he can’t resist it: ‘I believe it to be all but certain that Dirac’s behavioural traits as a person with autism were crucial to his success as a theoretical physicist.’ Such claims demand a leap of faith. Lack of evidence is one problem. More serious, however, is the tacit assumption that our own repertoire of psychiatric diagnoses transcends time and place."
26/02/2009
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The Financial Times
Alan Cane
"[Dirac] became increasingly disillusioned with his work, telling a colleague in his later years that his life had been a failure. Farmelo has produced ample evidence that however many times Dirac’s intuition had led him to the right conclusion, in this case he was completely wrong. The book is not entirely satisfactory, however. The author’s attempts at explaining Dirac’s scientific achievements will be appreciated chiefly by those with some familiarity with quantum theory. Dirac, meanwhile, comes across as uni-dimensional, an unengaged and unengaging bystander..."
09/02/2009
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The Independent on Sunday
Doug Johnstone
"There's a problem with writing a comprehensive biography of such a guarded figure. Dirac's best physics was behind him by his early thirties, and his career a slow decline from winning the Nobel Prize in 1933. With nothing in the way of extracurricular interests or even discernible personality to work with, Farmelo is left to describe Dirac's nomadic wanderings from campus to campus, only the occasional interesting development to spark the reader's interest."
08/02/2009
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