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Paul Adrian Maurice Dirac


Paul Adrian Maurice Dirac,OM, F.R.S. Nobel Laureate ( 1902 - 1984 )
Location 1st IOP plaque on the Bristol office of IoP publishing
Unveiled(1) 23 September 1997 by his daughter, Monica, and grand daughter Victoria
IOP Branch South Western
Born: 8 August 1902 in Bristol
Died: 20 October 1982 in Florida where he is buried in Talahassee's Cemetery. Memorial Plaque in Westminster Abbey, London
The inscription on the plaque reads:
This building was opened by
Monica Dirac
on 23 September 1997
and is named DIRAC HOUSE
in honour of her father
Paul Dirac OM HonFInstP FRS
"Of all physicists, Dirac has the purest soul"
Niels Bohr
Location of 2nd IOP blue plaque(2)15 Monk Road, Bishopston area of Bristol, Dirac's birthplace.
Unveiled12 December 2000 by Councillor Graham Robertson, Lord mayor of Bristol IOP Branch South Western

Dirac was a theoretical physicist who was awarded the Nobel prize for physics in 1933 jointly with Erwin Schrödinger "for the discovery of new productive forms of atomic theory". He developed Heisenberg's quantum mechanics to make a theory of the electron and predicted the existence of the positron.

Further details can be found in Newsletter no 16 pp19 - 21 2003

IN 1985 the IOP decided to introduce a new medal and prize to be name after Dirac and to awarded for theoreticl Physics.


Page last updated 21 November 2013