JOI] RNAt

of the
IJ,B.C. Physics Society
APRIL 1985
VOLUI'{E 24 NUI,{BER 1
roufd
i cm)
Poor
'itten
nust
ition
rotes )
.
.nor,
rclusions
;ent
@!
luent
:ered
Lven
rate
xt)
have
,The
rits.
Lack-
.d be
;S Of
i
PINSONAI RECOLLECTIOI{S OF P.A.U. DIRAC.
Dr.M.H.L.Pryce
Honorary Professor of Physics
University of British Colunbia
To call- P.A.M.Dirac a renarkable thinker is an extreme understatenent.The
origlnality of his formulation of physical phenonena can hardly be natched
in the history of scientific thinking. His first paper on quantu-n nechanics,
published whiLe he
r"es
still- a graduate student, creates a conceptual- framework
quite d.ifferent fron the classical description of physical happenings, which
still endures to this day. It tacitJ-y implied that this is the way things
are, whereas the classical- language is just
a rather clunsy attempt at talking
about the
trreafrr
worId.
Dirac did not actually originate the new concepts. He had the good fortune
to hear the visiting Heisenberg give a seninar at the Ifupitza Club in Cambridge,
in July 1925, about his new ideas on qudr.rn nechanies, and a nonth Iater,
to see the proofs of Heisenbergrs first paper before publication. He appears
to have recognized imnediatel-y that here r.ras a vital clue, and he clearly
believed that no excuse was needed for using abstract ideas ft was this
independence fron accepted preconceptions which was the nark of Diracrs style.
To ]ook at, Dirac Llas very different from lhe popular image of a scientist,
and nore like a poet or an artist. He was of slight build, to the poi-nt of
appearing frail, and spari:rg of speech to the point of tacitr.lrnity. He husbanded
his lnner rescurces in order not to waste them on idl-e social- intercourse. If
asked a sinple question to which he iarer.r the answer, he would give it in simple,
succinct language, in a very quiet voice. If he did not ia:ow the answer, quite
often he woul-d not reply at aII. He rarely volunteered a comrnent, and r^rhen
he did it coul-d be very naive if it dealt with things that did not greatly
concern him, or coul-d be very penetrating. He avoided tea, coffee a:rd other
stinul-ants.
f r^ras
nineteen years old when I first met him personalLy, a second year
undergradr:ate at Cambridge and secreta"rlr of the Tlinity Mathematical Soeiety,
tdth the task of organizing spea.kers for the coning yearrs progrFrnne. f ca1led
on Dj-rae in his roons in St. Johns College and shyly explained uhat f wanted. He
replied' equally shyly, that yes, he had been working on a natheroatical strrrcture
called spinor analysi-s, which the society night find interesting. We fixed
a date in the sonewhat distant futr:re, and I left rdthout further conversation. In
due eourse' by which time f was presi-dent of the 11"15, Dirac arrived at the
PEYSICS TJIIDERGR.ADUATE SOCIETY JOIJRNAL
DEPARIUENT OF PITI'SICS
ttNItv'ERSII1 OF BRITISMOIUMBTA
Vo1.24 Nuober 1, Aprll 1985
2
meeting roon and proceeded.
to give a beautifully crafted
lecture
devoid of
any rnneecessar:r words.
f believe it was ny first experience
of chairlng a
neeting, and r can still remember the tongue-tied feeling of trying to find
appropriate words with vhich to thank the speaker for a fascinating
lecture. 0
such an occasion as this, Di-rac, though noticeably a1oof, u-as completely
at
ease and ready to give a direct enswer to any relevant question.
rt was afso
ny first introdueti-on
to Diracrs lecturing style
_
though
I started to attend his l_ectr.ires on quanturn nechanics.
As r look back on the many occasions when r have listened
soon thereafter
to Dirac lecture,
the completely
in university courses, seni-nars or
unique quality
of his style. In his
conferences,
I an struck by
wriversity course, which was usuall_y attended
by a mix of fresh and natr.:re postgraduate
students, he went dj-rectJ,y into
the subject, essentiall-y
in the words of the first chapter of his book. In
a bound notebook I still have ny notes fron those lectr:res. The title page
reads
t'Quantun
Mechani,cs. Dirac. Jan. 1g3/* .u The next pa.ge read.s,
ntr\rndamental
of science is the fact that we have to deal only with observables. Evury
observation
has an inevitabl-e distr:rbing effect on the observed system a''d
there is a nininrrn distr:rbance beyond which the experiment camot be ideal-ized.
ft"om standpoint
of philosophy
this gives a limit to the reduction of things
to snaller things. The 1aw of causality of classical nechanics is meaningless
when thls is taken intc accou:rt. For if we r,rish to lrrow alL about a sysNen
we nust observe it at every insta:rt and this causes an lnfinite d.isturba:ce.
nSnperposition
of States.
rr
Given a systen of brown nasses and forces, a state in classical theory
is riefined by values of coordinates and nonenta at given time. rn
Q.M.
this
lcnowledge is impossible. fn fact we will see that a state is defined by coordinate
alone, or nonenta alone...tr
No doubt this is a sonewhat distorted renderi-ng of r^,hat Dirac actually
said' but it rings true. In this first lecture he started straight into the
subjeet rdth a highly condensed introduetion, as quoted
above. In subsequent
lectures he continued where he had left off, rdth no repetition of the last
sentenee, or a reni-nder of the previous
lectr:re.
f have alluded to Diraefs readiness to answer direet questions.
It is
part of the legend that he would totally ignore an ind.irectly
framed question,
such as
ttlt
seems to ne that...tr, and that onee vhen the chainoan asked Dirac
if he r"ras not going to answer a question,
Dirac replied
rfnat
was not a
question
-it
was a statement.rt
Though f was not present
on that occasion,
evoid of
airing a
to find
leeture. Or
etely at
i al-so
rereafter
Lc lecture,
rnpletely
y attended
bly into
book. In
tle page
damental,
I'V
;ten a:id
ecliryoA
I things
ningless
L theory
M. this
coordinater
rctually
nto the
lsequent
he last
,rtis
iestion,
d Dirac
inota
casion,
3
I have observed roany sinilar occurenees, and f can illustrate with a personal
anecdote. In 1938 when Dlrac was narried and living a mil-e or so out fron
the eentre of Canbridge, md I r.ras living i-n Tyinity Co1lege, Gritli Born
came froro Edinburgh to visit ne and was staying with the Diraes. She r"as due
to meet me one evening after dirurer for a theatre perforroance. She had no
watch, and the buses were infrequent, so she was anxj,ous about the tine and
asked l"Irs. Dirac
-
whose watch had stopped. the Hungarian cook was called
from the kitchen, but the kitchen clock had stopped too. Drring all this Dirac
sat eating his neal-, paying no attention to the hubbub. Then Gritti had a
bright idea and saidrrhofessor Dirac, r^rhat is the time?tt, whereupon he took
his r.Iatch out of his pocket, looked at it, and told her !
Diracrs appa.rent physical frailness was deceptive, as I discovered in
the sunroer of 19/*0 when f shared a cottage in the Iake District with the Diracs
for a week, and went on hikes and rock cli-mbs r-rith Dirac and his stepson Gabor. He
was a very conpetent rock clinber, his lightness conbined r^rith long reach
being an asset. He was adept at striding rapidly down scree slopes, a technique
he tol-d ne he had learned fron the Ie-keland sfate qr.urriers. His physi-cal
siamina was i-n fact qu:-te remarkable.
I Lrill close these ranbling reni-nj-scences rrith an exanple of the fatlibility
of memory. fn late 1932 or earJ-y 1933 I was attending the weekly colloqu_irlm
in the Cavendish Laboratory and heard Blaekett reporting on the experinents
in which he first detected 1n the cosnic radiation eharged particles of apparently
the nass of the electron, but which were either coning fron outer spa.ce and
with positive charge' or were negatively charged ordinary electrons coning
with great enerry out of the earth. Dirac and Kapitza, who were close friends,
were sitting together in the front row. ft was Kapitzars habit to tease Di-rac,
and on this occasion he turned to him and said
f'Positive
electrons, Dirac,
positive electrons ! Put that in your theory
rr,
and in his usua1 quiet voice
Dirac said
rrPositive
electrons have been in the theory for quite a long time
now.trSone years ago Kapitza was visiting Vancouver and I reminded. hj-n of
the episode. He was anazed, and had totally forgotten that it had happened.
M.H.L.Pryce
Vancouver,l4arch 1985