33 Letter from Dirac to Manci, 15 January 1936. Other details in this paragraph are in his letters to Manci of 25 January 1936, 2 February 1936 and 10 February 1936 (DDOCS).
34 Huxley (1928: 91) (‘Emotionally, he was a foreigner’) and p. 230 (‘a mystic, a humanitarian and also a contemptuous misanthrope’). See also Huxley (1928: 90, 92–6).
35 Letter from Dirac to Manci, 2 February 1936 (DDOCS).
36 Letter to Dirac from Manci, 23 February 1936 (DDOCS).
37 Letter from Dirac to Manci, 7 March 1936 (DDOCS).
38 Letter from Dirac to Manci, 7 March 1936 (DDOCS).
39 Letter to Dirac from Manci, 13 March 1936 (DDOCS).
40 Letters from Dirac to Manci, 23 March 1936 and 29 April 1936, and letter to Dirac from Manci, 24 April 1936 (DDOCS).
41 Letter from Dirac to Manci, 5 May 1936 (DDOCS).
42 Dirac had also fibbed to Kapitza in the previous year. Dirac makes this plain to Manci in his letter to her of 23 June 1936 (DDOCS).
43 Letter from Dirac to Manci, 9 June 1936 (DDOCS).
44 Letter from Dirac to Manci, 5 June 1936 (DDOCS).
45 Sinclair (1986: 55).
46 A. Blunt, ‘A Gentleman in Russia’, and a review of Crowther’s Soviet Science by Charles Waddington, both in the Cambridge Review, 5 June 1936.
47 Letter to Dirac from his mother, 7 June 1936, Dirac Papers, 1/4/6 (FSU).
48 Letters to Dirac from his sister, 6 June, 8 June and 9 June 1936, Dirac Papers, 1/7/1 (FSU).
49 Letter from Dirac to Manci, 17 June 1936 (DDOCS).
50 Letter to Dirac from his mother, 11 June 1936, Dirac Papers, 1/4/6 (FSU).
51 Daily Mirror, 21 May 1934, p. 14. The article concluded: ‘Dirac. Our great grandchildren may be repeating that name when the Chaplins, Fords, Cowards and Cantors are forgotten.’ Cantor is the American writer and entertainer Eddie Cantor.
52 Letter from Dirac to Manci, 17 June 1936 (DDOCS).
53 Letter to Dirac from his mother, July 1936, Dirac Papers, 1/4/6 (FSU).
54 Letter to Dirac from his mother, 27 August 1936, Dirac Papers, 1/4/6 (FSU).
55 Feinberg (1987: 97).
56 Dalitz and Peierls (1986: 151).
57 Letter from Kapitza to Rutherford, 26 April 1936, quoted in Badash (1985: 110).
58 Letter to Dirac from Manci, 2 September 1936 (DDOCS).
59 Pais (1991: 411).
60 Both preceding quotes are from the letter from Dirac to Manci, 7 October 1936 (DDOCS). Dirac commented to an officer of the Rockefeller Foundation, which funded the conference, that he was ‘genuinely enthusiastic’, quoted in Aaserud (1990: 223).
61 In Dirac, M. (1987), Manci recalls that she was on the Queen Mary’s maiden voyage. At that time, however, she was in Budapest.
62 Letter from Dirac to Manci, 19 October 1936 (DDOCS).
63 Letter from Dirac to Manci, 17 November 1936 (DDOCS).
64 Letter to Dirac from Isabel Whitehead, 29 November 1936, Dirac Papers, 2/3/4 (FSU).
65 Letter from Dirac to Isabel Whitehead, 6 December 1936, STJOHN.
66 Letter to Dirac from Isabel Whitehead, 9 December 1936, Dirac Papers, 2/3/4 (FSU).
67 Interview with Monica Dirac, 7 February 2003. Manci often related this story of Dirac’s proposal to her. The description of the car is in the letter from Dirac to Manci, 17 November 1935 (DDOCS).
68 Letter to Dirac from Manci, 29 January 1937 (DDOCS).
69 Letter to Dirac from his mother, 24 December 1936, Dirac Papers, 1/4/6 (FSU).
Chapter twenty-one
1 Dirac, M. (1987: 4).
2 Letter from Dirac to Manci, 18 February 1937 (DDOCS).
3 Letter from Dirac to Manci, 6 February 1937 (DDOCS).
4 Letter from Dirac to Manci, 20 February 1937 (DDOCS). Dirac writes ‘How soon after the new moon comes will I be alone with my beloved, and have her in my arms […]’.
5 Letter from Dirac to Manci, 19 February 1937 (DDOCS).
6 Letter from Dirac to Manci, 20 February 1937 (DDOCS).
7 Letter to Dirac from Manci, 16 February 1937 (DDOCS).
8 Letters to Dirac from Manci, 25 January and 16 February 1937 (DDOCS).
9 Letter to Dirac from Betty, 29 January 1937 (DDOCS).
10 Letter to Dirac from Manci, 29 January 1937 (DDOCS).
11 One reading of Manci’s cryptic comments in her letter to Dirac of 16 February 1937 is that his parents were sexually incompatible (DDOCS): ‘Betty told me today the reason why probably your parents did not like each other. Your father could not help it, don’t blame him dear, nor do [sic] your mother.’
12 Letter to Dirac from Manci, 18 February 1937 (DDOCS).
13 Letter to Dirac from Manci, 28 January 1937 (DDOCS). Dirac’s ‘unexpected’ marriage was noted in the Cambridge Daily News, 7 January 1937.
14 Letter from Rutherford to Kapitza, 20 January 1937, in Boag et al. (1990: 300).
15 Letter from Dirac to Kapitza, 29 January 1937, Dirac Papers 2/3/5 (FSU).
16 Letter to Manci from Anna Kapitza, 17 February 1937, Dirac Papers, 2/3/5 (FSU).
17 Dirac’s use of ‘Wigner’s sister’ became famous in his community. Both Dirac’s daughters confirm that he used this term of introduction.
18 Manci often used this expression. See, for example, Dirac (1987: 7).
19 Interview with Monica Dirac, 7 February 2003.
20 Salaman and Salaman (1996: 66–70); see p. 67.
21 Daniel (1986: 95–6).
22 Letter from Dirac to Manci, 19 February 1937 (DDOCS).
23 Dirac’s wish to have children appears obvious from his delighted reaction to the news of Manci’s later pregnancies.
24 Gamow (1967: 767).
25 Christianson (1995: 257).
26 Dingle (1937a).
27 Untitled supplement to Nature, Vol. 139, 12 June 1937, pp. 1001–2; p. 1001.
28 Dingle (1937b).
29 Report on Theoretical Physics to the Institute for Advanced Study, 23 October 1937, in the IAS Archives General Series, 52, ‘Physics’.
30 Estate of Charles Dirac, prepared by Gwynn, Onslow & Soars, who prepared the document on 7 October 1936 (DDOCS).
31 Letter to Dirac from his mother, 21 January 1937, Dirac Papers, 1/4/7 (FSU). See also the letter of 1 February 1937 in the same file of the archive.
32 Interview with Kurt Hofer, 21 February 2004.
33 Kojevnikov (2004: 119).
34 Postcard from Manci Dirac to the Veblens, 17 June 1937, LC Veblen archive.
35 Telegram from Kapitza to Dirac, 4 June 1937, KV 2/777, UKNATARCHI.
36 Service (2003: 223).
37 Fitzpatrick (1999: 194).
38 Letter from Kapitza to Rutherford, 13 September 1937, in Boag et al. (1990: 305–6).
39 Kojevnikov (2004: 116).
40 Before Landau fled Kharkov, he had worked at the Ukrainian Physico-technical Institute. He was arrested on 28 April 1938 in Moscow, and Kapitza wrote to Stalin seeking his release. His letter is quoted by David Holloway (1994: 43).
41 Letter from Dirac to Kapitza, 27 October 1937, Dirac Papers, 2/3/6 (FSU).
42 Letter to Dirac from Kapitza, 7 November 1937, Dirac Papers, 2/3/6 (FSU).
43 Letter from Fowler to Dirac, 25 January 1939, Dirac Papers, 2/3/8 (FSU).
44 This was one of Dirac’s favourite observations. See R. Dalitz, Nature, 19 Vol. 278 (April) 1979.
45 Hoyle (1992: 186).
46 Hoyle (1994: 131).
47 Hoyle (1994: 133).
48 Letter from Dirac to Bohr, 5 December 1938, NBA.
49 At least two of Flo’s poems were published in newspapers: ‘Cambridge’ appeared in the Observer on Saturday, 23 July 1938, and ‘Brandon Hill’ was published in the local Western Daily Press on Saturday, 12 March 1938.
50 On 2 February 1938, Princeton University sent Dirac a letter offering him tenure with an annual salary of $12,000, beginning 1 October 1938, Dirac Papers, 2/3/7 (FSU).
51 Letter from Anna Kapitza
to Manci Dirac, 9 March 1938, Dirac Papers, 1/8/18 (FSU).
52 Nature, 21 May 1938, No. 3577, p. 929. Schrödinger’s well-publicised letter was published in Graz Tagepost, 30 March 1938. See Moore (1989: 337–8).
53 Letters from Dirac to Manci in August 1938 (DDOCS). Wigner married Amelia Frank on 23 December 1936 in Madison, and she died on 16 August 1937. See ‘The Einhorn Family’, compiled by Margaret Upton (private communication).
54 Bell wrote to Dirac on 15 March 1938: ‘I had already and for a year or two reached the conclusion the Soviet trials were probably of the frame-up type. After all, that is not new. The Tom Mooney case in California in 1918 was such and the victim has been in prison ever since […] also the Sacco & Vanzetti case. Moreover, we seem to do it ourselves to a great extent in India. However, the “confession technique” is peculiarly Russian, on its present scale at least.’ Letter to Dirac from J. H. Bell, Dirac Papers, 2/3/7 (FSU).
55 Moore (1989: 347); letter from Schrödinger to Dirac, 27 November 1938, Dirac Papers, 2/3/7 (FSU).
56 Dirac gives these reasons in his obituary of Schrödinger in Nature, 4 February 1961, 189, p. 355–6.
57 Letter from Dirac to Kapitza, 22 March 1938, Dirac Papers, 2/3/7 (FSU).
58 Howarth (1978: 234–5).
59 The Times, 6 October 1938.
60 ‘Eddington Predicts Science Will Free Vast Energy from Atom’, New York Times, 24 June 1930. He was speaking at the World Power Conference. He suggested that such energy could be released by arranging for particles to annihilate or to make hydrogen nuclei fuse to form a helium nucleus.
61 Rhodes (1986: 28).
62 Weart and Weiss Szilard (1978: 53).
63 Weart and Weiss Szilard (1978: Chapter II).
64 Weart and Weiss Szilard (1978: 71–2).
65 The event took place in the Society’s house, 24 George Street, beginning at 4.30 p.m. Max Born was present.
66 Mill (1892: Book 2, Chapter 12).
67 This quote is from the text of the lecture, Proceedings of the Royal Society (Edinburgh), 59 (1938–9: 122–9); p. 123.
68 Granta, 48 (1): 100, 19 April 1939.
Chapter twenty-two
1 Bowyer (1986: 51).
2 This was one of Manci’s favourite expressions about how the British treated her. Interview with Mary Dirac, 21 February 2003.
3 Boys Smith (1983: 44).
4 Cambridge Daily News, 2 September 1939, p. 5.
5 Cambridge Daily News, 1 September 1939, p. 3. I am grateful to my mother, Joyce Farmelo, for her recollections of her time as an unhappy evacuee and her other wartime experiences.
6 E-mail from Mary Dirac, 5 March 2006.
7 ‘Cambridge During the War; the Town’, Cambridge Review, 27 October 1945; ‘Cambridge During the War; St John’s College’, Cambridge Review, 27 April 1946. See also ‘Thoughts Upon War Thought’, Cambridge Review, 11 October 1940.
8 Barham (1977: 32–3).
9 Letter to Dirac from his mother, 26 January 1940, Dirac Papers, 1/4/10 (FSU).
10 Manci spent the final months of her pregnancy in the Mountfield Nursing Home in London. Information about Mary’s birth from her baby book. Further clarification in an e-mail from Mary Dirac, 16 January 2006.
11 Letter to Dirac from Manci, 20 February 1940 (DDOCS). Manci’s exact words are ungrammatical: ‘I never felt as much that she has nor heart nor feelings whatsoever as yesterday.’
12 Peierls (1985: 150, 155).
13 Rhodes (1986: 323).
14 Facsimiles of the memos are in Hennessy (2007: 24–30).
15 Peierls (1985: 155).
16 The earliest extant letter about this, from Peierls to Dirac, is dated 26 October 1940, AB1/631/257889, UKNATARCHI.
17 Rhodes (1986: 303–7); Fölsing (1997: 710–14).
18 Letter to Aydelotte from Veblen and von Neumann, 23 March 1940, IAS Archives Faculty Series, Box 33, folder: ‘Veblen–Aydelotte Correspondence 1932–47’. The words omitted, marked by the ellipsis, are ‘There are considerable deposits of uranium available near Joachimsthal, Bohemia, as well as in Canada.’
19 Letter to Adyelotte from Veblen, 15 March 1940: IAS Archives General Series, Box 67, folder: ‘Theoretical Physics 1940 Proposals’.
20 Cannadine (1994: 161–2).
21 Letter from Manci to Crowther, 28 June 1941, SUSSEX.
22 Barham (1977: 54); Bowyer (1986: 51).
23 Letter to Dirac from his mother, 27 June 1940, Dirac Papers, 1/4/10 (FSU).
24 Letters to Dirac from his mother, 16 August and 31 August 1940, Dirac Papers, 1/4/10 (FSU).
25 Letter to Dirac from his mother, 12 May 1940, Dirac Papers, 1/4/10 (FSU).
26 Letter to Dirac from his mother, 21 June 1940, Dirac Papers, 1/4/10 (FSU).
27 Letter from Dirac to Manci, 27 August 1940 (DDOCS).
28 Letter from Dirac to Manci, 23 August 1940. Four days later, he wrote to her: ‘I am sorry to be away from you these days, but do not think there is any real danger in Cambridge’ (DDOCS).
29 Gustav Born later recalled that Dirac on this vacation was ‘a twinkling-eyed, kindly, distant man’, happiest when on his own. Interview with Gustav Born, 12 February 2005.
30 ‘The ladies do the cooking, and the men take it in turns to do the washing up,’ Dirac told Manci: letter, 23 August 1940 (DDOCS).
31 Letter from Dirac to Manci, 2 September 1940 (DDOCS).
32 Letter to Dirac from Manci, 8 September 1940 (DDOCS).
33 Letter from Pryce to Dirac, 18 July 1940, Dirac Papers, 2/3/10 (FSU).
34 Letter from Dirac to Manci, 21 January 1940 (DDOCS).
35 Letter from Gabriel to Dirac, 30 August 1945, and another undated later in the same month, Dirac Papers, 1/8/12 (FSU).
36 Letter to Dirac from his mother, 31 August 1940, Dirac Papers, 1/4/10 (FSU).
37 Letter from Peierls to Oppenheimer, 16 April 1954, LC, Oppenheimer archive.
38 The first part of this quotation is from the letter Dirac wrote to Manci on 18 December 1940; the second and third parts are from the letter he wrote to her the next day.
39 Letter to Dirac from Manci, 22 December 1940 (DDOCS).
40 Werskey (1978: 23); see also the foreword by C. P. Snow to Hardy (1940: 50–3).
41 Letter to Dirac from Hardy, May 1940, Dirac Papers, 2/3/10 (FSU).
42 Attendance register of Tots and Quots in 1940, Zucherman archive, wartime papers, SZ/TQ, EANGLIA.
43 Letter from Crowther to Dirac, 15 November 1940, Dirac Papers, 2/3/10 (FSU).
44 Brown (2005: Chapter 9).
45 The first letter to Dirac, from Peierls, in connection with war work is dated 26 October 1940, UKNATARCHI.
46 Bowyer (1986: 181). Manci often spoke of Judy’s role in the firefighting (e-mail from Mary Dirac, 23 April 2006). Manci refers to an earlier near-miss on 15 February 1941 in her letter to Crowther on 17 February 1941, SUSSEX.
47 Dirac often referred to Crowther as ‘the newspaper man’. See, for example, letter from Dirac to Manci, 4 May 1939 (DDOCS).
48 The spy was Jan Willen der Braak. ‘The Spy Who Died Out in the Cold’, Cambridge Evening News, 30 January 1975.
49 Letter from Harold Brindley, 7 August 1939, STJOHN; Dirac refers calmly to discussions with Eddington in a letter to Peierls, 16 July 1939, Peierls archive (BOD).
50 Letter from Pryce to Dirac, 11 June 1941, Dirac Papers, 2/3/11 (FSU).
51 The time of the lecture is recorded in the Royal Society’s Meeting Notices. Afternoon tea began at 3.45 p.m.
52 Letter to Dirac from Pauli (then at the Institute for Advanced Study), 6 May 1942, Dirac Papers, 2/3/12 (FSU).
53 Bohr did not find out about the project until he escaped occupied Denmark in autumn 1943: see Bohr (1950).
54 Telegram to Dirac from Kapitza, 3 July 1941, Dirac Papers, 2/3/11 (FSU).
55 Letter from Dirac to Kapitza, 27 April 1943, Dirac Papers, 2/14/12A (FSU).
56 Penny (2006: ‘Fatalities in the Greater Bristol Area’).
&nb
sp; 57 Letter to Dirac from Dr Strover, 2 October 1941, Dirac Papers, 2/3/11 (FSU).
58 Letter from Flo Dirac to her neighbour Mrs Adam, written shortly before Christmas 1941, Dirac Papers, 1/2/1 (FSU).
59 Flo was buried in the Borough Cemetery (now the City Cemetery) in grave space 7283.
Chapter twenty-three
1 Article by Lannutti in Taylor (1987: 45).
2 Interview with Monica Dirac, 1 May 2006.
3 The committee was called MAUD, possibly short for Ministry of Aircraft production Uranium Development committee: Gowing (1964: Chapter 2).
4 Gowing (1964: 53n.).
5 Nye (2004: 73–4).
6 Nye (2004: 75–85).
7 The quote is from Churchill (1965: epilogue).
8 Letter to Dirac from F. E. Adcock, 24 May 1942, Dirac Papers, 2/3/12 (FSU).
9 Letter to Dirac from Nigel de Grey of the Foreign Office in London, 1 June 1940, Dirac Papers, 2/3/10 (FSU).
10 Copeland (2006: Chapter 14).
11 Letter from Sir Denys Wilkinson, who was one of Dyson’s fellow students in Dirac’s lecture course, 15 January 2004; also phone call, 16 January 2004. ‘I went to Dirac’s lectures in Cambridge in 1942/3. Freeman Dyson, a year junior to us but very precocious, was also in the class. He was very disruptive because he asked questions. Dirac always took a long time to answer them and on one occasion ended a class early so that he could prepare a proper response’ (interview, 15 January 2004).
12 Sir Denys Wilkinson, letter, 15 January 2004; phone call, 16 January 2004.
13 Letter from Dirac to Peierls, 11 May 1942, UKNATARCHI.
14 See Thorp and Shapin (2000: 564).
15 Letter from Wigner to the US Office of International Affairs, 1 September 1965, Wigner archive, PRINCETON.
16 Anecdotes from interview with Monica Dirac, 7 February 2003 and 1 May 2006; and with Mary Dirac, 21 February 2003.
17 Hoyle (1987: 187).
18 Dirac, M. (2003: 41).
19 Letter from Dirac to Manci, 13 July 1942 (DDOCS).
20 With his usual understatement, Dirac wrote to Manci, ‘It seems a little strange to have a prime minister at these very specialized lectures. I wonder how he can spare the time.’ Letter from Dirac to Manci, 17 July 1942, DDOCS.
21 Letter from Peierls to Dirac, 30 September 1942, AB1/631/257889.
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