Paul A. M. Dirac, Interview by Friedrich Hund (1982) [video]
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Re: Paul A. M. Dirac, Interview by Friedrich Hund (1982) [video]
#2I read in Friedrich Hund's Wikipedia biography that while he was in Jena in after WWII in East Germany, the head of the Thuringen state government awarded him in 1949.... a voucher for a pair of shoes (a copy of the letter is on Wikipedia) as recognition of his academic merits.
He ended up emigrating to the West in 1951, and thus avoided the bloody 1953 Soviet repression of unions demands in Jena. Question to Germans: Was the shoe voucher a more or less hidden message, or just typical postwar East German socialism?
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cb/Brief_Eg...
Re: Paul A. M. Dirac, Interview by Friedrich Hund (1982) [video]
#3[flagged]
Re: Paul A. M. Dirac, Interview by Friedrich Hund (1982) [video]
#4Some great stories about Dirac's "unusual" personality: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Dirac#Personality
One of my favorite theologians, physicist-turned-Anglican-priest Dr. John Polkinghorne FRS, did his Ph.D in Dirac's group. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Polkinghorne
Re: Paul A. M. Dirac, Interview by Friedrich Hund (1982) [video]
#5Some great stories about Dirac's "unusual" personality: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Dirac#Personality One of my favorite theologians, physicist-turned-Anglican-priest Dr. John Polkinghorne FRS, did his Ph.D in Dirac's group. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Polkinghorne
A famous great anecdote about Dirac (and Bohr and Rutherford) was in Absolute Zero Gravity:
--
Young Dirac arrived at Niels Bohr’s institute with a glowing recommendation from the great experimentalist Ernest Rutherford. A few months later, Bohr remarked to Rutherford that this marvelous Dirac hardly seemed so special: he said nothing and he did nothing. Legend has it that Rutherford replied with the following story:
A man went to a pet shop to buy a parrot. There was a gray parrot that knew a few words selling for one hundred dollars. There was a blue parrot that could sing and tell stories for two hundred dollars. There was a beautiful green and purple bird that spoke several ancient languages for five hundred dollars. And there was a nondescript brown bird priced at a thousand dollars.
“A thousand dollars!” exclaimed the would-be buyer. “That must be some bird - how many languages does he speak?” “Just English,” admitted the shopkeeper.
“His vocabulary is extraordinary, perhaps?” The shopkeeper shrugged. “Not really”.
“Does he sing, then?” “No,” said the shopkeeper. “Most days this parrot doesn’t even talk”.
“Well, does he do acrobatic tricks or something? What on earth is so valuable about that parrot?”
“Sir, this parrot thinks”.
Rutherford concluded, “Dirac thinks”.
Re: Paul A. M. Dirac, Interview by Friedrich Hund (1982) [video]
#6I read in Friedrich Hund's Wikipedia biography that while he was in Jena in after WWII in East Germany, the head of the Thuringen state government awarded him in 1949.... a voucher for a pair of shoes (a copy of the letter is on Wikipedia) as recognition of his academic merits. He ended up emigrating to the West in 1951, and thus avoided the bloody 1953 Soviet repression of unions demands in Jena. Question to Germans…
Not an expert but this reads like typical DDR to me
Re: Paul A. M. Dirac, Interview by Friedrich Hund (1982) [video]
#7I read in Friedrich Hund's Wikipedia biography that while he was in Jena in after WWII in East Germany, the head of the Thuringen state government awarded him in 1949.... a voucher for a pair of shoes (a copy of the letter is on Wikipedia) as recognition of his academic merits. He ended up emigrating to the West in 1951, and thus avoided the bloody 1953 Soviet repression of unions demands in Jena. Question to Germans…
Not an expert either, esp. because I'm too young and socialized in West Germany with family ties to Thuringia, though.
What always struck me was Eastern Germans' tendency to practical things (and an enormous creativity in fixing broken stuff!). In addition, this is 1949 Eastern Germany, the country was devastated and this part under Soviet rule. It might sound a bit weird as a gift from today's wealthy point of view but historically "a good pair of shoes" was always something people appreciated throughout all times and cultures.
Re: Paul A. M. Dirac, Interview by Friedrich Hund (1982) [video]
#8I'm not a physicist, but it's very pleasant listening to a conversation between two old intellectuals.
Re: Paul A. M. Dirac, Interview by Friedrich Hund (1982) [video]
#9I'm not a physicist, but it's very pleasant listening to a conversation between two old intellectuals.
With regard to the "effect", what about listening to an intellectual hero of the beginning of the XX Century, and seeing him active near the end of the XX Century, discussing thus the experimental contributions of "radar" (1940), "atomic clock" (1955), "spacecrafts on Mars" (1964) and the "Viking lander" (1976)...
Re: Paul A. M. Dirac, Interview by Friedrich Hund (1982) [video]
#10I read in Friedrich Hund's Wikipedia biography that while he was in Jena in after WWII in East Germany, the head of the Thuringen state government awarded him in 1949.... a voucher for a pair of shoes (a copy of the letter is on Wikipedia) as recognition of his academic merits. He ended up emigrating to the West in 1951, and thus avoided the bloody 1953 Soviet repression of unions demands in Jena. Question to Germans…
Not an expert either, esp. because I'm too young and socialized in West Germany with family ties to Thuringia, though. What always struck me was Eastern Germans' tendency to practical things (and an enormous creativity in fixing broken stuff!). In addition, this is 1949 Eastern Germany, the country was devastated and this part under Soviet rule. It might sound a bit weird as a gift from today's wealthy point of view…
> historically "a good pair of shoes" was always something people appreciated throughout all times and cultures
(It seems I am indulging in anecdotes a bit in this page, but anyway) In the portrait of "Lenin" Ulyanov by Paul Johnson in Modern Times, you will read
> Lenin left Zurich to return to Russia on 8 April 1917. [...] At Stockholm, comrade Karl Radek bought him a pair of shoes, but he refused other clothes, remarking sourly, ‘I am not going to Russia to open a tailor’s shop’.