Science · Technology · 1902–1984
Born: 8 August 1902 · Died: 20 October 1984 · Age at death: 82
Paul Dirac died aged 82. He was born on 8 August 1902 and died on 20 October 1984.
English physicist who predicted antimatter, wrote the Dirac equation and shared the Nobel Prize in Physics at 31
Did you know?He was famously taciturn and used such few words that his colleagues at Cambridge jokingly defined a unit of speech called a 'dirac'.
Paul Dirac was one of the founders of quantum mechanics. In 1928 he wrote an equation describing the electron that fitted both quantum theory and Einstein's relativity. It suggested a strange new particle with the opposite charge. Four years later the positron was found, the first sign of antimatter. He shared the Nobel Prize in Physics at just 31. He held Newton's old chair at Cambridge. He was famously shy and spoke very few words. He believed a good physical law should be beautiful.
Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac ( dih-RAK; 8 August 1902 – 20 October 1984) was an English theoretical physicist who is considered to be one of the founders of quantum mechanics. Dirac laid the foundations for both quantum electrodynamics and quantum field theory, coining the former term.
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Profile
English physicist, 1902–1984
Paul Dirac was born in Bristol on 8 August 1902.
He wrote the Dirac equation in 1928.
He predicted the positron.
He shared the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1933.
Career highlights
Did you know?His colleagues joked a "dirac" was one word per hour.
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