The statement is a little bit ambiguous, what is meant that he wrote the first phd thesis on the topic. I don't know if that is true, but at least that is what's claimed in the linked comment.
It's from a time when academics (physics at least) was less interested in appearance and more interested in results. It's why there were so many breakthroughs. Today that has shifted with physics being more of a fashion contest to get funding.
This may be true but this is surely a bad example: Dirac's thesis is about Quantum Mechanics which is also one of the most fashioned research topics these days. So it's either a "result" or just a "fashioned topic" but it cannot be both at the same time.
On a side note, I wouldn't call (La)TeX a fashioned tool that scientists use to impress other people and get funding.
I have said it before and I will say it again, because it needs to be said:
F U Richard!
(for making people log in to access content)
UPDATE: On a more constructive note --- @RichardPrice, if you remove the "you must login to access" barrier, I pledge to upload all my papers to your website and I will even promote it.
I think these are just his notes on his thesis, rather than his actual thesis. I don't know what the source is, but this same document was posted on HN as his `handwritten notes for his Ph.D' (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6002173).
It's incomplete, full of corrections and deletions and covered in notes that are not referenced in the text.
Cambridge keeps a copy of theses submitted since 1920, so they should have a hardcopy of the real thing somewhere, but I wouldn't have thought it had been digitised. How fantastic it would be if they did though!
Being in the topic of Paul Dirac, there is a wonderful biography - The Strangest Man: The Hidden Life of Paul Dirac, Quantum Genius, by Graham Farmelo.
It is an exceptionally well-written biography of one of the greatest physicists, and a rare combination of a page-turner and a book written with the English reserve.
Besides the history of an important part of physics, and its historical background (including the rise of Nazism and Stalinism, WWII and later - Cold War) one can clearly see that science is not a dry product, polished from its very beginning. It's a process, created by various people, of different personalities and views, having simple and genial ideas, making blunt mistakes, and having life besides science (even Dirac).
Also, it shows science (here: physics) as a sociological process, with its centre shifting from Cambridge (centred around E. Rutherford), Copenhagen and Gottingen to Princeton, Moscow, ...
When it comes to Dirac himself - it's a moving example of a person, who may look as cold and devoid of emotions, but in fact is a loving father, loyal friend (defending the imprisoned (P. Kapitza), and excluded (W. Heisenberg)) and a responsible man. And one, who had never became reconciled with his brother's suicide.
The biography leaves a little doubt when it comes to Paul Dirac's autism, or Asperger's syndrome. While introversion, withdrawal, reticence, and persistence may stem from different causes, being literal-minded, characteristic response to stimuli and poor insight into other minds are, IMHO, hard to interpret in any other way.
14 comments
[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 45.0 ms ] threadPaul Dirac's handwritten notes for his PhD, the first ever on quantum mechanics.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6002173
Well that's a statement.
On a side note, I wouldn't call (La)TeX a fashioned tool that scientists use to impress other people and get funding.
I have said it before and I will say it again, because it needs to be said:
(for making people log in to access content)UPDATE: On a more constructive note --- @RichardPrice, if you remove the "you must login to access" barrier, I pledge to upload all my papers to your website and I will even promote it.
It's incomplete, full of corrections and deletions and covered in notes that are not referenced in the text.
Cambridge keeps a copy of theses submitted since 1920, so they should have a hardcopy of the real thing somewhere, but I wouldn't have thought it had been digitised. How fantastic it would be if they did though!
It is an exceptionally well-written biography of one of the greatest physicists, and a rare combination of a page-turner and a book written with the English reserve.
Besides the history of an important part of physics, and its historical background (including the rise of Nazism and Stalinism, WWII and later - Cold War) one can clearly see that science is not a dry product, polished from its very beginning. It's a process, created by various people, of different personalities and views, having simple and genial ideas, making blunt mistakes, and having life besides science (even Dirac).
Also, it shows science (here: physics) as a sociological process, with its centre shifting from Cambridge (centred around E. Rutherford), Copenhagen and Gottingen to Princeton, Moscow, ...
When it comes to Dirac himself - it's a moving example of a person, who may look as cold and devoid of emotions, but in fact is a loving father, loyal friend (defending the imprisoned (P. Kapitza), and excluded (W. Heisenberg)) and a responsible man. And one, who had never became reconciled with his brother's suicide.
The biography leaves a little doubt when it comes to Paul Dirac's autism, or Asperger's syndrome. While introversion, withdrawal, reticence, and persistence may stem from different causes, being literal-minded, characteristic response to stimuli and poor insight into other minds are, IMHO, hard to interpret in any other way.
(And a nicer review by one of my friends: http://www.math.uwaterloo.ca/~mkotowsk/reviews/3farmelo.html)