The Moral Vision
All the Blood of One’s Body
~ 205 ~
ALL THE BLOOD OF ONE’S BODY
Professor Paul Dirac died in Florida, U.S.A., in
October 1984 at the age of 84. Recipient of the Nobel
Prize and many other awards, he was considered
after Newton and Einstein—the greatest scientist of
modern theory—in effect the physics of the smallest
part of the atom—and his effective prediction of
anti-matter before it had been experimentally
discovered. His “anti-matter” and “anti-universe”
became the leading physical ideas for explaining the
character and contents of the contemporary
universe, its origin and history. J.G. Crowther’s
obituary to Dirac in
The Guardian
(November 4,
1984) was fittingly given the headline “Prophet of
the Anti-universe.”
Dirac’s discovery of the first anti-particle, known as
a positron, revolutionized the world of nuclear
physics. Students were naturally interested to know
how he arrived at this world-shaking discovery. His
answers often proved somewhat disconcerting.
“When people asked him how he got his startling
ideas about the nature of sub-atomic matter,”
Crowther writes, “he would patiently explain that
