Paul Dirac Quotes

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• A theory with mathematical beauty is more likely to be correct than an ugly one that fits some experimental data.

  Paul Dirac

  Data, Ugly, Fit

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• Living is worthwhile if one can contribute in some small way to this endless chain of progress.

  Paul Dirac

  Progress, Way, Chains

  "Impact? I want an interstellar Higgs drive please" by Jon Butterworth, www.theguardian.com. July 16, 2012.

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• Scientific progress is measured in units of courage, not intelligence.

  Paul Dirac

  Progress, Units, Scientific Progress

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  God used beautiful mathematics in creating the world.

  Paul Dirac

  Beautiful, God, Creating

  "The Cosmic Code: Quantum Physics As The Language Of Nature". Book by Heinz Pagels, p. 295, 1982.

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• Pick a flower on Earth and you move the farthest star.

  Paul Dirac

  Inspirational, Life, Stars

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• There are always more people who prefer to speak than to listen.

  Paul Dirac

  Communication, People, Speak

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• The aim of science is to make difficult things understandable in a simpler way; the aim of poetry is to state simple things in an incomprehensible way. The two are incompatible.

  Paul Dirac

  Simple, Two, Way

  "Dirac: A Scientific Biography". Book by Helge Kragh, p. 258, 1990.

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• I consider that I understand an equation when I can predict the properties of its solutions, without actually solving it.

  Paul Dirac

  Science, Understanding, Equations

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• A physical law must possess mathematical beauty.

  Paul Dirac

  Law, Mathematical Beauty, Mathematical

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• If there is a God, he's a great mathematician.

  Paul Dirac

  Math, If There Is A God, Ifs

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• If we are honest - and scientists have to be - we must admit that religion is a jumble of false assertions, with no basis in reality.

  Paul Dirac

  Reality, Religion, Atheism

  Remarks during the Fifth Solvay International Conference on October 1927. "Physics and Beyond: Encounters and Conversations". Book by Werner Heisenberg, pp. 85-86, 1971.

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• I do not see how a man can work on the frontiers of physics and write poetry at the same time. They are in opposition. In science you want to say something that nobody knew before, in words which everyone can understand. In poetry you are bound to say ... something that everyone knows already in words that nobody can understand.
  Commenting to him about the poetry J. Robert Oppenheimer wrote.

  Paul Dirac

  Writing, Men, Poetry

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• The fundamental laws necessary for the mathematical treatment of a large part of physics and the whole of chemistry are thus completely known, and the difficulty lies only in the fact that application of these laws leads to equations that are too complex to be solved.

  Paul Dirac

  Lying, Science, Law

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• The measure of greatness in a scientific idea is the extent to which it stimulates thought and opens up new lines of research.

  Paul Dirac

  Greatness, Ideas, Research

  "The Scientific Work of Georges Lemaître". Commentarii (Pontifical Academy of Sciences journal), Volume 2, 11, 1968.

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• It is more important to have beauty in one's equations than to have them fit experiment.

  Paul Dirac

  Mathematical Equations, Important, Fit

  "Magic numbers: can maths equations be beautiful?" by Ian Sample, www.theguardian.com. November 21, 2016.

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• I found the best ideas usually came, not when one was actively striving for them, but when one was in a more relaxed state… I used to take long solitary walks on Sundays, during which I tended to review the current situation in a leisurely way. Such occasions often proved fruitful, even though (or perhaps, because) the primary purpose of the walk was relaxation and not research.

  Paul Dirac

  Sunday, Ideas, Long

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• One could perhaps describe the situation by saying that God is a mathematician of a very high order, and He used very advanced mathematics in constructing the universe.

  Paul Dirac

  Order, Mathematics, Used

  "The Evolution of the Physicist's Picture of Nature" by Paul Dirac, blogs.scientificamerican.com. June 25, 2010.

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• As time goes on, it becomes increasingly evident that the rules which the mathematician finds interesting are the same as those which Nature has chosen.

  Paul Dirac

  Nature, Science, Interesting

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• The physicist, in his study of natural phenomena, has two methods of making progress: (1) the method of experiment and observation, and (2) the method of mathematical reasoning. The former is just the collection of selected data; the latter enables one to infer results about experiments that have not been performed. There is no logical reason why the second method should be possible at all, but one has found in practice that it does work and meets with reasonable success.

  Paul Dirac

  Math, Practice, Data

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• When [Erwin Schrödinger] went to the Solvay conferences in Brussels, he would walk from the station to the hotel where the delegates stayed, carrying all his luggage in a rucksack and looking so like a tramp that it needed a great deal of argument at the reception desk before he could claim a room.

  Paul Dirac

  Science, Biographies, Rooms

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• Mathematics is the tool specially suited for dealing with abstract concepts of any kind and there is no limit to its power in this field.

  Paul Dirac

  Math, Power, Tools

  Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac (1995). “Sammlung”, p.457, Cambridge University Press

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• If you are receptive and humble, mathematics will lead you by the hand. Again and again, when I have been at a loss how to proceed, I have just had to wait until I have felt the mathematics led me by the hand. It has led me along an unexpected path, a path where new vistas open up, a path leading to new territory, where one can set up a base of operations, from which one can survey the surroundings and plan future progress.

  Paul Dirac

  Humble, Loss, Hands

  "The Strangest Man: The Hidden Life of Paul Dirac, Mystic of the Atom". Book by Graham Farmelo, 2009.

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• What makes the theory of relativity so acceptable to physicists in spite of its going against the principle of simplicity is its great mathematical beauty. This is a quality which cannot be defined, any more than beauty in art can be defined, but which people who study mathematics usually have no difficulty in appreciating.

  Paul Dirac

  Art, People, Appreciate

  Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac (1995). “Sammlung”, p.908, Cambridge University Press

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• A termination of one's life is necessary in the scheme of things to provide a logical reason for unselfishness. . . . The fact that there is an end to one's life compels one to take an interest in things that will continue to live after one is dead.

  Paul Dirac

  Facts, Life Is, Reason

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• It was not until some weeks later that I realized there is no need to restrict oneself to 2 by 2 matrices. One could go on to 4 by 4 matrices, and the problem is then easily soluable. In retrospect, it seems strange that one can be so much held up over such an elementary point. The resulting wave equation for the electron turned out to be very successful. It led to correct values for the spin and the magnetic moment. This was quite unexpected. The work all followed from a study of pretty mathematics, without any thought being given to these physical properties of the electron.

  Paul Dirac

  Successful, Discovery, Goes On

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