Awards & Winners

Paul Dirac

Date of Birth 08-August-1902
Place of Birth Bristol
(United Kingdom, England, South West England, United Kingdom, with Dependencies and Territories)
Nationality Switzerland, United Kingdom
Also know as Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac, P. A. M. Dirac
Profession Physicist, Mathematician, Scientist
Quotes
  • This isn't right. This isn't even wrong.
Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac OM FRS was an English theoretical physicist who made fundamental contributions to the early development of both quantum mechanics and quantum electrodynamics. He was the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge, a member of the Center for Theoretical Studies, University of Miami, and spent the last decade of his life at Florida State University. Among other discoveries, he formulated the Dirac equation, which describes the behaviour of fermions and predicted the existence of antimatter. Dirac shared the Nobel Prize in Physics for 1933 with Erwin Schrödinger, "for the discovery of new productive forms of atomic theory". He also did work that forms the basis of modern attempts to reconcile general relativity with quantum mechanics. He was regarded by his friends and colleagues as unusual in character. Albert Einstein said of him, "This balancing on the dizzying path between genius and madness is awful", referring to his autistic traits. His mathematical brilliance, however, means he is regarded as one of the most significant physicists of the 20th century.

Awards by Paul Dirac

Check all the awards nominated and won by Paul Dirac.

1952


Max Planck Medal
Copley Medal
(In recognition of his remarkable contributions to relativistic dynamics of a particle in quantum mechanics.)

1933


Nobel Prize in Physics
(for the discovery of new productive forms of atomic theory)