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Paul Dirac's handwritten notes for his PhD, the first ever on quantum mechanics

academia.edu

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Re: Paul Dirac's handwritten notes for his PhD, the first ever on quantum mechanics

#21

Post by nrmn »

[deleted] wrote: post #18
nrmn wrote: post #4

Here is a link to the pdf to save anyone from the signup process. Which was painfully long and annoying. https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/155545/dirac_1926_disser...

[deleted]

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0BzwdtDAz5dlwTXVyUzZPQkZQVEk

I hope Google is nicer.

Re: Paul Dirac's handwritten notes for his PhD, the first ever on quantum mechanics

#22

Post by Maro »

dmead wrote: post #3

so many threads on hacker news get voted to the top without any comments at all. usually you're supposed to read the article, but in this case i doubt anyone is really capable of understanding it. so in conclusion, aside from this one the article has the appropriate number of comments.

I scanned it and I think it's awesome. I'll go back to it later probably.

Having said that I wouldn't recommend anyone to read this. Instead, there's this awesome gem, which I have read multiple times. Don't believe anyone who says it's outdated and you shouldn't read it.

P.A.M. Dirac: The Principles of Quantum Mechanics

http://www.amazon.com/Principles-Quantum-Mechanics-Internati...

Re: Paul Dirac's handwritten notes for his PhD, the first ever on quantum mechanics

#25

Post by jervisfm »

nrmn wrote: post #4

Here is a link to the pdf to save anyone from the signup process. Which was painfully long and annoying. https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/155545/dirac_1926_disser...

I didn't realize that academia mandated a sign up for download of content. IIRC their position was that signup would be optional in order to differentiate themselves from traditional academic publishers who protect access to their content with paywalls/subscriptions. Clearly, either I was mistaken or they have changed their policies.

Re: Paul Dirac's handwritten notes for his PhD, the first ever on quantum mechanics

#26

Post by Panoramix »

Little_Peter wrote: post #20
newobj wrote: post #14

Dirac went to FSU? Wha???

Yes, he went to Florida State University in the dawn of his career. This explains the watermark.

Indeed, he went to Bristol and Cambridge, whence he developed his relativistic quantum theory.

He relocated to Florida towards the end of his life.

*edited the part where I assert OP was wrong.

Re: Paul Dirac's handwritten notes for his PhD, the first ever on quantum mechanics

#27

Post by RVijay007 »

nrmn wrote: post #4

Here is a link to the pdf to save anyone from the signup process. Which was painfully long and annoying. https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/155545/dirac_1926_disser...

Looks like your link is so popular that Dropbox has temporarily disabled it!

Re: Paul Dirac's handwritten notes for his PhD, the first ever on quantum mechanics

#28

Post by Little_Peter »

Panoramix wrote: post #26
Little_Peter wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, he went to Florida State University in the dawn of his career. This explains the watermark.

Indeed, he went to Bristol and Cambridge, whence he developed his relativistic quantum theory. He relocated to Florida towards the end of his life. *edited the part where I assert OP was wrong.

We are splitting hairs here. What is wrong? That his career dawned in Florida?

Re: Paul Dirac's handwritten notes for his PhD, the first ever on quantum mechanics

#29

Post by nrmn »

RVijay007 wrote: post #27
nrmn wrote: post #4

Here is a link to the pdf to save anyone from the signup process. Which was painfully long and annoying. https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/155545/dirac_1926_disser...

Looks like your link is so popular that Dropbox has temporarily disabled it!

Yea, dropbox has a 20gb limit on public downloads so the file being ~28mbs means its been downloaded around 700 times.

Re: Paul Dirac's handwritten notes for his PhD, the first ever on quantum mechanics

#30

Post by Osmium »

herge wrote: post #7
Osmium wrote: post #2

There's nothing like looking at that Table of Contents to put your own PhD in perspective!

How big was your table of contents?

It's less the size and more the breadth. A lot of people in sciences now feel like the "big discoveries" have been made (at least until the next paradigm shift comes along) and all we can do now is an incremental grind in some highly specific area.

Reading Dirac's table of contents is like reading the chapter headings in my undergrad quantum physics textbook. The thing is though, he's actually responsible for a lot of it!

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