The Strangest Man

by Graham Farmelo

  International Esperanto Congress (Trinity College, Cambridge, 1907) 1

  ‘International Series of Monographs on Physics’ 1

  Inyom, Revd. Sapasvee Anagami 1

  Isenstein, Harald 1, 2 n46

  isotope separation 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

  Israel 1

  Ivanenko, Dmitry ‘Dimus’ 1, 2, 3

  Jackson, Lydia (previously Elisaveta Fen) 1

  Japan PD and Heisenberg visit 1

  new militarism in 1

  bombing of Hiroshima 1, 2

  bombing of Nagasaki 1

  surrender of 1

  ‘Jazz Band’ (informal group of Soviet theorists) 1, 2

  Jeans, Sir James 1, 2, 3 The Mysterious Universe 1

  Jeffreys, Harold 1

  ‘Jewish physics’ 200, 1

  John Paul II, Pope 1

  Joliot-Curie, Frédéric 1, 2

  Joliot-Curie, Irène 1, 2, 3

  Jones, Norman 1, 2n34, 3n8

  Jordan, Pascual 1, 2, 3, 4 works with Born and Heisenberg at Göttingen 1, 2

  and groups of electrons 1

  personality 1

  appearance 1

  and field theory 1, 2

  and the Dirac equation 1

  Nazi past 1, 2

  Joyce, James 1 Finnegans Wake 1

  A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man 1

  Julius Road, Bristol (No.6) 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24n33, 25n24

  Kant, Immanuel and beauty 1, 2n54

  and truth 1

  Kapitza, Anna (‘Rat’) 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12

  Kapitza, Peter 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 settles in the UK 1

  personality 1, 2, 3, 4

  influences PD 1

  resented by Blackett 1

  obsession with the crocodile 1, 2, 3, 4n29

  Russia’s industrialisation and electrification 1

  relationship with Rutherford 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

  compared with PD 1

  supports Communist goals 1, 2

  under surveillance 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

  sets up the Kapitza Club 1

  attitude to experimental physics 1

  marries Anna Krylova 1

  co-edits the ‘International Series of Monographs on Physics’ 1

  at the Cavendish Physical Society annual dinner 1

  the Bukharin visit to Cambridge 1

  MI5 monitors him 1, 2

  vacation with PD in the Crimea 1

  and the anti-electron 1

  PD works with him in his laboratory 1, 2, 3, 4

  detained by the Soviet Government 1, 2, 3

  and Rutherford’s death 1

  seeks Landau’s release 1, 2n40

  wartime telegram to PD 1

  nominated by PD for a Nobel Prize 1, 2n37

  invents method of liquefying oxygen 1

  ‘Hero of Socialist Labour’ 1

  and Beria 1

  in disgrace 1

  letters to Stalin 1

  and PD’s passion for beauty 1

  visits Cambridge in 1966 1

  Nobel Prize in Physics 1

  death 1

  PD spends his last hours talking about him 1

  ‘The Training of the Young Scientist in the

  USSR’ 1

  Kapitza-Dirac effect 1, 2, 3, 4, 5n27

  Kapitza Club 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11n28, 12n52

  Keats, John 1

  Kennedy, John F. 1

  Kent State University 1

  ket 1

  Keynes, John Maynard 1, 2, 3, 4

  Kharkhov 1

  Khrushchev, Nikita 1, 2, 3

  Kierkegaard, Søren 1

  Kitchener, Lord 1

  Klampenborg Forest, Denmark 1

  Klein, Oskar 1, 2, 3 n30

  Koh-i-Noor restaurant, St John’s Street, Cambridge 1, 2n7

  Kronborg castle, Denmark 1

  Kubrick, Stanley 1

  Kuhn, Thomas 1, 2

  Kun, Béla 1, 2

  Kursunoglu, Behram 1, 2, 3, 4n23

  Kyoto 1

  Labour government 1

  Labour Party 1, 2, 3

  Lagerlöf, Selma 1n10

  Lagrange, Jopseph Louis 1

  Lagrangian 1

  Lake District 1, 2, 3

  Lake Elmore 1

  Lamb, Charles: ‘The Old Familiar Faces’ 1

  Lamb, Willis 1, 2

  Landau, Lev 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10n40

  Landshoff, Peter 1n18

  Langer, Rudolph 1

  Lannutti, Joe 1

  Large Hadron Collider 1

  large numbers hypothesis 1, 2, 3, 4, 5n13

  Larmor, Sir Joseph 1, 2, 3n44

  lasers 1, 2, 3, 4

  Lawrence, Ernest 1

  Lawrence, T.E.: Seven Pillars of Wisdom 1

  Lederman, Ellen 1, 2, 3n35

  Lederman, Leon 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6n35

  Lee, T. D. 1, 2, 3n63

  left-right symmetry 1, 2n4

  Leiden, Netherlands, PD visits 1, 2, 3, 4n5

  Leipzig Heisenberg appointed full professor 1

  PD in 1

  Lemaître, Abbé Georges 1, 2, 3n52

  Lenin, Vladimir 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

  Leningrad, PD in 1, 2, 3

  leptons 1, 2

  Liberal Party 1, 2

  Life magazine 1

  light viewed as photons 1, 2, 3n20

  in a continuous wave 1, 2, 3, 4

  emitted and absorbed by atoms 1

  energy of light tranferrable to atoms only in quanta (Planck) 1

  as particles 1

  see also radiation, electromagnetic

  Lindau, Germany 1965 meeting 1

  1971 meeting 1

  1982 meeting 1, 2n61

  Lindemann, Frederick 1, 2, 3, 4

  Lindstrom, Andy 1

  Lippmann, Gabriel 1n21

  Liverpool 1

  Lloyd George, David 1, 2

  Locarno, Treaty of (1925) 1, 2

  logical positivists 1

  London Charles Dirac in 1

  in Second World War 1, 2, 3

  Dirac family stays in 1

  London Mathematical Society 1n16

  Los Alamos headquarters, New Mexico 1, 2

  Lost Lake, near Tallahassee 1

  Lourdes 1

  Lucasian Professorship of Mathematics 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

  Luftwaffe 1, 2

  Lyons, Eugene 1

  McCarthy, Joseph 1

  MacDonald, Ramsay 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

  magnetic monopole 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8n5, 9n48

  Manchester 1

  Manchester Guardian 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

  Manchester University 1, 2

  Manhattan, New York 1, 2, 3

  Manhattan Project 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

  Martineau, Harriet 1n29

  Marx, Karl 1

  Marxism 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

  mathematics aesthetic view of 1

  applied 1, 2, 3, 4n7

  beauty of 1, 2, 3, 4

  Bohr’s attitude to 1

  God as a mathematician 1, 2

  mathematical rigour 1

  PD’s sometimes cavalier attitude to 1

  pragmatic approach to the mathematics of engineering 1

  pure 1, 2, 3, 4n6

  game in which people invent the rules, PD’s view as 1

  matrices and electron spin 1

  Heisenberg’s quantum theory 1, 2, 3

  MAUD committee 1, 2n3

  Maugham, W. Somerset A Writer’s Notebook 1

  Of Human Bondage 1

  Then and Now 1

  Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp, Austria 1

  Maxwell, James Clerk electromagnetic theory 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

  the universe as a giant mechanism 1

  Maysky, Ivan 1

  mechanics, laws of (Newton) 1, 2

  Meitner, Lise 1

  Merchant Venturers’ Secondary School, Bristol (later Cotham Road School) 1, 2 Charles te
aches at 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6n19

  PD’s education 1, 2, 3, 4n29

  relocates to Cotham Lawn Road 1

  celebration of PD’s success 1, 2

  Merchant Venturers’ Society 1

  Merchant Venturers’ Technical College, Bristol 1, 2, 3n56 Felix studies at the Faculty of Engineering 1, 2

  PD’s studies 1, 2, 3, 4n10

  wartime bombing of 1

  mesons 1, 2, 3n22

  Metropolitan Police Special Branch 1

  MI5 65, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

  Miami 1, 2

  Miami Museum of Science 1

  Mickey Mouse 1, 2, 3, 4n5

  microelectronics 1, 2

  Mill, John Stuart 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12n53 On Liberty 1

  A System of Logic 1, 2, 3

  Miller, Arthur 1, 2

  Millikan, Robert 1, 2 electrical charge 1

  cosmic rays 1, 2, 3

  and Anderson’s evidence for a positive electron 1

  and electron-positron pairs 1

  efforts to get Kapitza released 1, 2

  Mills, Robert 488n25

  Milne, Edward 1, 2, 3

  Miners’ Union 1

  Minkowski, Hermann 1

  Molière 1

  Møller, Christian 1

  Mond Laboratory, Cambridge 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

  Monge, Gaspard 1

  Monk Road, Bishopston, Bristol (No.15) 1, 2, 3n15

  monopole problem 1

  Monthey, Switzerland 1, 2, 3

  Moore, George 1n53 Principia ethica 1

  Morgan, Howard 1n49

  Morrisville, Vermont 1

  Morse, Louise 1

  Moscow 1 PD in 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

  Kapitzka detained in 1, 2, 3

  science community 1

  Moscow News 1

  Moscow Polytechnic 1

  Moscow University 1

  Moseley, Sir Oswald 1

  Mott, Nevill 1, 2, 3, 4, 5n46

  Mount Brocken 1

  Mount Elbrus 1

  Mount Wilson Observatory, near Pasadena 1

  Mountfield Nursing Home, London 1n10

  Much Wenlock, Shropshire 1

  Munich 1, 2

  Munich agreement 1, 2

  muon 1, 2, 3, 4

  Mussolini, Benito 1, 2, 3, 4

  Nagasaki, bombing of 1

  nanotechnology 1

  NASA 1

  nature fundamental equations of Nature as only approximations 1

  laws of 1, 2, 3, 4

  metaphor of a colossal clockwork mechanism 1

  unity and beauty of 1

  Nature journal 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12

  Nazis (National Socialists)/Nazism 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20

  negative energy states 1

  Nehru, Jawaharlal 1

  neutrinos 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 n32

  neutron stars 1

  neutrons atomic nuclei 1

  Chadwick’s discovery 1, 2, 3

  Rutherford proposes 1, 2

  strongly interacting 1

  New Statesman 1, 2, 3, 4

  New York 1, 2

  New York Times 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12

  Newlin’s restaurant, Princeton 1

  Newman, Max 1, 2

  Newnham College, Cambridge 1n28

  News Chronicle 1

  Newton, Sir Isaac 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 childhood 1

  Einstein’s theory refutes his ideas 1, 2, 3

  theory of gravity 1, 2

  mechanics 1, 2, 3

  burial in Westminster Abbey 1, 2

  and autism 1

  Nightingale, Florence 1, 2

  Nixon, Richard 1

  Noakes, Michael 1, 2n48, 489n49

  Nobel, Alfred 1, 2, 3

  ‘Nobel disease’ 1

  Nobel Foundation 1, 2, 3

  non-commuting quantities 1, 2, 3

  non-interacting quantum particles 1

  Norway, PD in 1

  nuclear fission 1, 2, 3

  nuclear industry 1

  nuclear weapons 1, 2 destruction of incoming 1

  Second World War 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13

  Occhialini, Giuseppe 1, 2

  Oklahoma! (film soundtrack) 1

  Old Faithful geyser 1

  Oppenheimer, Frank 1

  Oppenheimer, J. Robert 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 personality 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

  dislike of Cambridge life 1

  clinical depression 1, 2

  tries to poison Blackett 1

  works with PD 1

  friendship with PD 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11

  at Born’s Department of Theoretical Physics 1

  poetry 1

  Ph.D. on the quantum mechanics of molecules 1, 2

  and the rise of anti-Semitism 1

  disappointed with PD’s work in Göttingen 1

  at University of California at Berkeley 1, 2

  and PD’s hole theory 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

  on the Heisenberg-Pauli theory 1

  and Anderson’s positive electron 1

  quantum electrodynamics 1

  Scientific Director of the Manhattan Project 1, 2, 3, 4

  celebrated as a hero in the USA 1

  director of the Institute for Advanced Study 1

  former Communist sympathies 1

  adviser on nuclear policy 1

  US withdraws his security clearance 1

  appearance 1

  retirement and death 1

  and black holes 1

  Orpington, south-east London 1

  Orwell, George 1, 2, 3

  Coming Up for Air 1

  The Lion and the Unicorn 1

  Oseen, Carl 1

  Ottawa 1

  Oxford 1

  Pais, Abraham 1, 2n24 Subtle is the Lord 1n20

  Palais de la Découverte, La, Paris 1, 2

  pantheism 1

  Papal Academy 1, 2, 3

  parity violation 1, 2

  particle accelerators 1, 2

  particle physics 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

  Pauli, Wolfgang 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14n33 an analytical conservative analyst 1

  exclusion principle 1, 2

  personality 1

  and electron spin 1

  PD’s harshest critic 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

  Second Principle 1

  praises PD’s textbook 1

  and PD’s hole theory 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

  co-presents seminar with PD at Princeton 1

  appearance 1

  the neutrino 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

  problems in his personal life 1

  second marriage 1

  quarrels with Heisenberg 1

  Nobel Prize 1

  death 1, 2

  Pavlov, Ivan 1

  ‘Peanuts’ 1

  Pearl Harbor, bombing of 1

  Peierls, Genia 1

  Peierls, Rudolf 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14n12, 15n10

  Penrose, Roger 1

  Peterhouse College, Cambridge 1

  Phillips, Leslie Roy 1, 2n4, 3n26, 4n31

  philosophy 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

  Phoney War 1, 2

  photography, amateur 1

  photons 1 and Einstein 1

  and Langer 1

  light consisting of 1, 2, 3n20

  scattering by a single electron 1

  stimulated emission process and the laser 1

  Picasso, Pablo 1, 2

  Pickering, Arthur 1, 2, 3

  Pincher, Chapman 1, 2n44

  Pippard, Brian 1

  Planck, Max quantum hypothesis 1, 2, 3

  blackbody radiation spectrum 1, 2

  Planck’s constant 1, 2

  Plato 1

  Podolsky, Boris 1, 2, 3n25

  Poisson bracket 1, 2, 3n40

  Poland Hitler’s invasion of 1

  collapse of 1

  Manci’s view of Poles 1

  Polkinghorne, John 1, 2


  Poncelet, Jean-Victor 1

  Portishead, Bristol 1, 2, 3

  Portland Street Chapel, Bristol 1

  position and momentum symbols 1, 2

  positive energy states 1

  positivism 1, 2

  positron emission tomography (PET) 1, 2

  positrons 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12n34

  see also anti-electrons

  Pottier family 1n16

  Pravda 1, 2

  ‘primitive atom’ theory 1, 2

  Princeton 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

  Princeton University 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8n50

  bicentennial celebrations 1

  Fine Hall (later Jones Hall) 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

  Fuld Hall 1, 2

  Graduate College 1

  Proceedings of the Royal Society 1

  projective geometry 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7n5

  protons

  atomic nuclei 1

  negative 1

  strongly interacting 1

  Pryce, Gritli (née Born) 1

  Pryce, Maurice 1, 2, 3

  pulsars 1

  Punch magazine 1

  Pythagoras’s theorem 1

  quanta 1 energy 1, 2

  Schrödinger’s wave theory 1

  see also photons

  quantum chromodynamics 1

  quantum electrodynamics 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22

  quantum field theory 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22 see also quantum electrodynamics and quantum chromodynamics

  quantum jumps 1, 2n24

  quantum mechanics 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 named by Born 1

  birthplace of 1

  building of the complete theory 1

  first prediction of 1

  mathematical symbols in 1, 2

  central role of probability 1

  relationship with classical mechanics 1, 2

  relativistic 1