The Moral Vision
Going Places on Home Ground
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GOING PLACES ON HOME GROUND
Paul Dirac, who died in November 1984, was known
to the world as the developer of the mathematics of
the quantummechanical theory—in effect the physics
of the smallest part of the atom. He received his initial
education, however, not in the field of mathematics,
but in that of electrical engineering. Though he
obtained a first-class degree at the Merchant
Venturers Technical College, he did not excel in this
subject. As J.G.Crowther wrote in his obituary: “His
teachers did not consider him a genius.” (
The Muslim,
Islamabad, November 23, 1984).
It was only when he entered the mathematics
department of Bristol University, and then went on
to St. John’s College to continue his studies in the
same field, that “it was perceived that he had
extraordinary intellectual powers.”
In the field of mathematics, Dirac was on homeground.
His success as a physical mathematician was
phenomenal.
Following
Werner
Heisenberg’s
publication of the idea of a new quantum mechanics in
