Earlier quoted context omitted.
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https://docs.google.com/file/d/0BzwdtDAz5dlwTXVyUzZPQkZQVEk I hope Google is nicer.
Here is a link to skydrive copy:
https://skydrive.live.com/redir?resid=EC25CEEFA14ACEE1!654&a...
Paul Dirac's handwritten notes for his PhD, the first ever on quantum mechanics
51–55 of 55 posts
Re: Paul Dirac's handwritten notes for his PhD, the first ever on quantum mechanics
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't know what university you went to, but it definitely was on my course. Second or third year. The idea that you wouldn't cover relativistic QM in undergrad physics is pretty absurd, and probably indicative of how shallow American undergrad degrees are.
Defensive American undergraduate educated anecdote: my degree was in computer science and I studied this third year. Can't speak for anybody else.
Computational QM is a thing these days :)
Re: Paul Dirac's handwritten notes for his PhD, the first ever on quantum mechanics
#53Very nice!
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I'll throw another link into the pile.
A 54min lecture on the life of Paul Dirac. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfYon2WdR40
The lecturer is very engaging and this a very approachable talk for those not versed in physics.
Re: Paul Dirac's handwritten notes for his PhD, the first ever on quantum mechanics
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
Defensive American undergraduate educated anecdote: my degree was in computer science and I studied this third year. Can't speak for anybody else.
Computational QM is a thing these days :)
Yep, didn't mean to suggest the course is irrelevant to computer scientists. I meant to imply that if they're teaching it to CS students third year, presumably physics students are learning it earlier and/or in more depth.
Re: Paul Dirac's handwritten notes for his PhD, the first ever on quantum mechanics
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
Indeed, although some of this is the luck of timing. E.g. Richard Feynman would likely have been one of the great names in quantum mechanics ... if it weren't for the fact he was 8 years old right then. Linus Pauling, born 17 years earlier, became the 20th century's most preeminent chemist in part because he was a fricking genius and writer (many of his books are still useful today), but key was that also in 1926 he…
One of the interesting things in http://businessinnovation.berkeley.edu/WilliamsonSeminar/jon... is the graphs and comments on quantum mechanics - everyone involved got degrees and did their Nobel-worth work astonishingly young. The 'bag of jewels' metaphor really is apt, because it seems you had only to be young and flexible-minded to do groundbreaking work. There will probably never again be a period of such riches…
In the late 19th century, many physicists thought they had physics pretty well sewn up, with just a few loose ends. Of course it turns out that those loose ends led to quantum mechanics and relativity, completely revolutionizing the field.
Today it seems that physics has most things pretty well figured out, but there are the loose ends of dark matter and dark energy. We don't know exactly what they are, but they seem to make up almost 95% of the content of the universe! So there might still be a chance for another wholesale revolution or two in physics.