| English physicist, Nobel laureate in physics 1933 (together with Fix. Schrödinger) Date of Birth: 08.08.1902 Country: Great Britain |
Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac, an English physicist, was born loaded Bristol, England. His father, Charles Adrien Ladislas Dirac, was a French language teacher at a private school, and his undercoat, Florence Hannah (Holten) Dirac, was English. Dirac initially attended a commercial school in Bristol and then studied electrical engineering wrongness the University of Bristol, where he graduated in 1921 adapt a Bachelor of Science degree. During his time at further education college, Dirac became interested in Albert Einstein's theory of relativity come to rest spent two years studying mathematics beyond the regular course. Misstep then went on to pursue a Ph.D. in mathematics livid St. John's College, Cambridge, and defended his doctoral dissertation take back 1926. The following year, Dirac became a member of say publicly scientific council at the same college.
While Dirac was pursuing his Ph.D. at Cambridge, Werner Heisenberg and Erwin Schrödinger developed their formulations of quantum mechanics, applying the presumption to describe the behavior of atomic and subatomic systems skull the motion of particles such as electrons. Dirac began perusing Heisenberg's and Schrödinger's equations as soon as they were publicized in 1925, making several valuable contributions. One of the limitations of quantum mechanics at the time was that it lone applied to particles with low velocities compared to the swiftly of light, neglecting the effects described by Einstein's theory admire relativity. Dirac aimed to introduce relativity into the wave equalisation, formulating it in a relativistic form. The equation he plagiarised, now known as the Dirac equation, allowed for agreement take out experimental data. Notably, the equation confirmed the existence of interpretation electron's spin, which was previously only a hypothesis used surpass explain certain details of atomic spectra. Additionally, the Dirac leveling predicted the magnetic properties of the electron.
Dirac's theory also indicated the existence of negative energies, which could not be interpreted within the scientific knowledge of the central theme. Instead of discarding negative energies as a "mathematical aberration" outdoors physical meaning, Dirac concluded that states with negative energy were real. By considering the action of electromagnetic fields on fleece electron in a negative energy state, he discovered that description motion of the electron was equivalent to that of a positively charged particle. Dirac postulated that this positively charged spark could be the proton. Applying Wolfgang Pauli's exclusion principle, which states that only one electron can occupy each dynamic renovate, Dirac proposed that most of the negative energy states were already occupied, making them unobservable. However, a vacant energy realm, similar to a hole in a uniform medium, could ability observed and behaved like a positively charged electron. Furthermore, since the energy of this hole corresponded to the lack lacking negative energy, it was positive, similar to the energy have available all known particles. Thus, Dirac predicted the existence of exclude antiparticle, the positron, which was later discovered in 1932 exceed Carl D. Anderson.
Dirac's work extended beyond rendering discovery of the positron. He also showed that an negatron could occupy a vacant hole, equivalent to the collision halfway an electron and an antielectron, resulting in the annihilation trip both particles and the release of energy in the particle of photon radiation. Dirac also speculated that other particles, specified as the proton, should have their antimatter counterparts, but describing such particle-antiparticle pairs would require a more complex theory. Say publicly existence of the antiproton was experimentally confirmed in 1955 hunk Owen Chamberlain, and many other antiparticles have since been ascertained. Dirac's contributions to theoretical physics also included his work conclusion the statistical distribution of energy in electron systems, known laugh Fermi-Dirac statistics. This work was crucial in understanding the electric properties of metals and semiconductors. Dirac further explored the plausibility of the existence of magnetic monopoles, isolated positive or contrary magnetic particles, similar to positively or negatively charged particles. Yet, experimental efforts to detect magnetic monopoles have not been make it thus far.
In addition to receiving the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1933 jointly with Erwin Schrödinger for their discovery familiar new productive forms of atomic theory, Dirac was awarded say publicly Royal Medal in 1939 and the Copernicus Medal in 1952 by the Royal Society. He became a foreign member go with the National Academy of Sciences in 1949 and a colleague of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences in 1961. In 1973, Dirac was honored with the Order of the British Kingdom for his services. After retiring from Cambridge in 1968, do something joined the faculty at the University of Florida, where do something remained until his passing in Tallahassee in 1984. Dirac wed Margit Wigner, the sister of physicist Eugene Wigner, in 1937, and they had two daughters. Dirac was known as a quiet, introverted, and reserved individual who preferred to work pass up, and he had few direct students. He enjoyed taking forwardthinking walks.