'A monumental achievement - one of the great scientific biographies.' Michael Frayn
The Strangest Man is the Costa Biography Award-winning account of Paul Dirac, the famous physicist sometimes called the British Einstein. He was one of the leading pioneers of the greatest revolution in twentieth-century science: quantum mechanics. The youngest theoretician ever to win the Nobel Prize for Physics, he was also pathologically reticent, strangely literal-minded and legendarily unable to communicate or empathize. Through his greatest period of productivity, his postcards home contained only remarks about the weather.
Based on a previously undiscovered archive of family papers, Graham Farmelo celebrates Dirac's massive scientific achievement while drawing a compassionate portrait of his life and work. Farmelo shows a man who, while hopelessly socially inept, could manage to love and sustain close friendship.
The Strangest Man is an extraordinary and moving human story, as well as a study of one of the most exciting times in scientific history.
'A wonderful book . . . Moving, sometimes comic, sometimes infinitely sad, and goes to the roots of what we mean by truth in science.' Lord Waldegrave, Daily Telegraph
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The Strangest Man 9780571222865 Paperback
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- Authors:
- Farmelo, Graham
- Year Published:
- 2009
- Country of Publication:
- United Kingdom
- Format:
- Paperback
- ISBN:
- 9780571222865
- Number of Pages:
- 576
- Publication Date:
- 24/12/2009
- Publisher:
- Faber Faber
- Publisher:
- Faber & Faber
- Place of Publication:
- London
- SKU:
- 9780571222865