Paul Dirac
In Our Time5 Mar 2020

Paul Dirac

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the theoretical physicist Dirac (1902-1984), whose achievements far exceed his general fame. To his peers, he was ranked with Einstein and, when he moved to America in his retirement, he was welcomed as if he were Shakespeare. Born in Bristol, he trained as an engineer before developing theories in his twenties that changed the understanding of quantum mechanics, bringing him a Nobel Prize in 1933 which he shared with Erwin Schrödinger. He continued to make deep contributions, bringing abstract maths to physics, beyond predicting anti-particles as he did in his Dirac Equation.

With

Graham Farmelo Biographer of Dirac and Fellow at Churchill College, Cambridge

Valerie Gibson Professor of High Energy Physics at the University of Cambridge and Fellow of Trinity College

And

David Berman Professor of Theoretical Physics at Queen Mary University of London

Producer: Simon Tillotson

Episoder(1086)

Twelfth Night, or What You Will

Twelfth Night, or What You Will

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of Shakespeare’s great comedies, which plays in the space between marriage, love and desire. By convention a wedding means a happy ending and here there are three, ...

25 Jan 202453min

Vincent van Gogh

Vincent van Gogh

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Dutch artist famous for starry nights and sunflowers, self portraits and simple chairs. These are images known the world over, and Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) pain...

18 Jan 202456min

Tiberius

Tiberius

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Roman emperor Tiberius. When he was born in 42BC, there was little prospect of him ever becoming Emperor of Rome. Firstly, Rome was still a Republic and there had n...

11 Jan 202453min

Karl Barth

Karl Barth

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of the most influential theologians of the twentieth century. Karl Barth (1886 - 1968) rejected the liberal theology of his time which, he argued, used the Bible a...

4 Jan 202455min

Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Poe (1809-1849), the American author who is famous for his Gothic tales of horror, madness and the dark interiors of the mind, such as The Fall of the House of Usher an...

28 Des 202358min

Marguerite de Navarre

Marguerite de Navarre

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Marguerite, Queen of Navarre (1492 – 1549), author of the Heptaméron, a major literary landmark in the French Renaissance. Published after her death, The Heptaméron fea...

21 Des 202346min

The Theory of the Leisure Class

The Theory of the Leisure Class

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the most influential work of Thorstein Veblen (1857-1929). In 1899, during America’s Gilded Age, Veblen wrote The Theory of the Leisure Class as a reminder that all tha...

14 Des 202355min

The Barbary Corsairs

The Barbary Corsairs

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the North African privateers who, until their demise in the nineteenth century, were a source of great pride and wealth in their home ports, where they sold the people ...

7 Des 202352min

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