The Strangest Man

by Graham Farmelo

  and miniaturisation 1

  quantum numbers 1, 2

  quantum theory discovered by Planck 1

  Einstein lays its foundations 1

  laws of 1

  PD introduces the mathematics of creation

  and annihilation 1

  the universe as fundamentally granular 1

  quarks 1, 2, 3, 4

  quaternions 1, 2, 3

  Queen Mary (liner) 1

  Rabi, Isidor 1

  radiation electromagnetic 1, 2, 3

  gravitational 1

  radio 1, 2, 3

  radioactive decay 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

  Rain Man (film) 1

  Ramond, Pierre 1, 2, 3n1

  Reagan, Ronald 1

  Redlands Girls’ School, Bristol 1

  reductionism 1

  relativity 1, 2, 3, 4 as PD’s passion 1, 2

  Broad’s teaching of 1

  Einstein’s general theory 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26 n32, 27n35

  Einstein’s special theory 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20n10

  Hassé speaks on the subject at Cambridge 1

  Rembrandt van Rijn 1

  renormalisation 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10n29

  Retherford, Robert 1

  Reynolds’s Illustrated News 1

  Richards, Sir Gordon 1

  Riemann, Bernhard 1, 2

  Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam 1

  Robertson, Andrew 1

  Robertson, David 1, 2, 3, 4

  Robertson, Howard 1

  Robertson, Malcolm 1

  Robeson, Paul 1

  Roentgen Institute, Leningrad 1

  Rolls-Royce 1, 2n1

  Röntgen, Wilhelm 1

  Roosevelt, Eleanor 1

  Roosevelt, Franklin D. 1, 2, 3, 4

  Roselawn cemetery, Tallahassee 1

  Rosen, Nathan 1

  Rosenfeld, Léon 1

  Rothschild, Victor, Lord 1n51

  ‘Roundy’ (Joseph Coughlin) 1

  Rousseau, Jean-Jacques 1, 2

  Royal Air Force 1, 2, 3

  Royal Astronomical Society, Burlington House, London 1n16

  Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851 82, 1, 2

  Royal Navy 1, 2

  Royal Society 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 PD elected a Fellow 1

  funds the Mond Laboratory 1

  Baker Medal 1

  and Heisenberg 1, 2n33

  and Schrödinger 1

  Royal Society of Scotland 1

  Rugby, Warwickshire 1, 2

  Russell, Bertrand 1 ‘Zahatopolk’ 1n6

  Rutherford, Ernest, Baron Rutherford of Nelson 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 and Eddington 1, 2

  personality 1, 2, 3, 4

  appearance 1

  discovery of the atomic nucleus 1, 2

  proposes the neutron 1, 2

  director of the Cavendish Laboratory 1

  Kapitza’s nickname for him (‘the Crocodile’) 1

  and Kapitza’s support of Communism 1

  and Bohr 1, 2

  relationship with Kapitza 1, 2

  loathes Bernal 1, 2

  ennobled 1

  death of his daughter 1

  and Chadwick’s discovery of the neutron 1

  and the Cockcroft-Walton splitting of the atom 1

  leadership of Cambridge experimental physicists 1

  Blackett’s anger at his despotic style 1

  bottom-up approach to physics 1

  bas-relief in the Mond Laboratory 1

  stays in Bohr’s mansion 1n47

  and Kapitza’s detention 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

  and PD’s marriage 1

  on Eddington 1

  death 1

  memorial service at Westminster Abbey 1, 2

  St John’s College, Cambridge 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 PD unable to take up a place at (1921) 1, 2

  PD wins two scholarships (1923) 1

  PD arrives at 1

  described 1, 2, 3

  encourages PD to apply for a Fellowship 1

  awards PD a special lectureship 1, 2n36

  Tamm’s visit (1931) 1

  Born’s honorary position 1

  Combination Room 1, 2, 3, 4

  Fellowship extended for life 1

  Isenstein bust of PD 1

  PD’s last visit to 1

  first women undergraduates 1

  nurturing environment for PD 1

  PD apologises for absence at eightieth birthday celebrations 1n66

  PD’s Nobel Medal and certificate returned 1n37

  St Maurice, Switzerland 1, 2n16

  Sakharov, Andrei 1

  Salam, Abdus 1, 2, 3, 4

  Salaman, Esther and Myer 1, 2, 3n24

  scattering matrix 1, 2

  Schnabel, Artur 1

  Schönberg, Arnold 1, 2, 3n15

  Schrödinger, Annemarie (Anny) 1, 2, 3

  Schrödinger, Erwin 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7n8 his quantum theory 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

  reputation as a polymath 1

  wave mechanics 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

  visits the Bohr Institute 1

  Nobel Prize for physics 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

  personality 1

  a refugee in Oxford 1

  affirms his loyalty to the Nazi regime 1, 2, 3

  accepts Dublin post 1

  Dublin conference (1942) 1

  elected to the Royal Society 1

  death 1

  PD’s obituary 1, 2n56

  Schrödinger’s equation 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

  Schuster, Arthur 1

  Schwarz, John 1

  Schwinger, Julian 1

  Science journal 1, 2

  Science Museum, London 1, 2

  Scientific American 1, 2n10

  Scott lecture 1, 2

  Second Physics Institute, Göttingen 1

  Second World War Chamberlain declares war on Germany 1

  Cambridge 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

  blitzkrieg of Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands 1

  end of the war in Europe 1

  Seiberg, Nathan 1

  Sen, Colleen Taylor 1n35

  Shakespeare, William 1, 2 Hamlet 1, 2, 3

  Love’s Labour’s Lost 1

  Richard II 1

  Shankland, Robert 1

  Shaw, George Bernard 1 Getting Married 1, 2

  – Preface 1

  The Irrational Knot 1

  Shelter Island Conference, Long Island, New York (1947) 1

  Shinyo Maru (steamer) 1

  Sidgwick, Henry 1n53

  Silver Lake, near Tallahassee 1

  Simon, Sir Francis 1

  Simpsons, The 1, 2n8

  Sinatra, Frank 1, 2n48

  Skye, Isle of 1

  Slater, John 1, 2, 3n8

  Sliger, Bernie 1

  Snow, C. P. 1 The Search 1, 2n51

  Social-Democratic Workers’ Party 1

  Socialist Society 1

  sociology 1

  solar-eclipse experiments (1919) 1, 2, 3, 4

  Solvay Conferences 1927 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

  1930 1

  1933 1

  1961 1

  Sommerfeld, Arnold: Atomic Structure and Spectral Lines 1

  Sound of Music, The (film) 1

  Soviet Academy of Sciences 1, 2, 3

  Soviet Conference on Nuclear Physics (Leningrad, 1933) 1

  Soviet Embassy, Washington 1

  Soviet Union PD’s first visit 1, 2

  PD’s second visit 1

  and the British press 1, 2

  the Soviet experiment 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

  the Jazz Band 1, 2

  PD falls foul of the censors 1

  PD’s support for Soviet physics 1

  PD attends Leningrad conference (1933) 1

  PD unaware of the cost of the collectivisation programme 1

  PD in Bolshevo 1, 2

  Great Purge 1

  trials in 1

  Nazi invasion of 1

 
PD and colleagues refused visas by

  Churchill 1

  Fuchs passes secrets to 1

  early detonation of the Soviet nuclear weapon 1

  Sputnik missions 1

  space programme 1

  Cuban crisis 1

  space-time curved 1, 2, 3

  and de Sitter 1

  more than four dimensions of 1

  special theory of relativity 1

  unified 1

  Spanish Civil War (1936 ) 1

  Spender, Stephen Journals 1n38

  World Within World 1

  Spielberg, Steven 1

  spinors 1

  spintronics 1

  Spinoza, Baruch 1

  Sputnik missions 1

  SS 1

  Stalin, Joseph 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 rise to absolute power 1

  industrialisation policy 1, 2

  collective farming programme 1

  interviewed in New Statesman 1

  and the intelligentsia 1

  attitude to science 1, 2

  Cambridge students favour over Hitler 1

  his government becomes more repressive 1

  non-aggression pact with Hitler 1, 2

  and Kapitza 1, 2

  death 1

  Khrushchev denounces 1

  Stalingrad 1

  Standard Model 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

  Stanford, Henry King 1, 2

  Stanford University 1

  Star Trek 1, 2, 3 n8

  Start the Week (Radio 1 programme) 2

  steady-state theory 1, 2

  Stockholm, Sweden 1, 2, 3

  Stockman, Gertrude 1

  Stokes, Sir George 1

  Stony Brook, New York 1n6

  Stoppard, Tom: Arcadia 1

  Strassman, Fritz 1

  Strategic Defence (‘Star Wars’) Initiative 1

  stress diagrams 1, 2n54

  string theory 1, 2, 3, 4n27

  strings 1, 2

  strong interaction 1, 2, 3

  subatomic particle accelerators 1

  Sudarshan, George 1n31

  Suez crisis (1956) 1

  Sunday Dispatch 1

  Svenska Dagbladet 1, 2

  Swift, Jonathan: Gulliver’s Travels 1

  Swirles, Bertha 1n15

  Switzerland, PD visits 1, 2

  Szilárd, Leó 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

  ’t Hooft, Gerard 1

  Tallahassee, Florida 1, 2, 3, 4

  Tallahassee Democrat 1

  Tallahassee Memorial Hospital, Florida 1, 2

  Tamm, Igor 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 at Leiden 1

  personality 1

  politics 1

  first Soviet theoretician to use quantum

  mechanics 1

  friendship with PD 1

  meets up with PD in Moscow 1

  and PD’s hole theory 1, 2

  on ‘brigade education’ 1

  and the positron’s detection 1

  in Bolshevo 1

  climbing vacation in the USSR with PD 1, 2

  secret project to build the hydrogen bomb 1

  Nobel Prize 1

  Tata Institute, Bombay 1, 2n30

  technical drawing 1, 2, 3, 4, 5n40, 6n44

  Teller, Edward 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9n12

  Tennyson, Alfred, Lord 1

  Teszler, Betty (PD’s sister) see Dirac, Beatrice

  Teszler, Christine (PD’s niece) 1, 2n29

  Teszler, Joe 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6n34

  Teszler, Roger (PD’s nephew) 1, 2, 3

  Thatcher, Margaret, Baroness 1, 2, 3

  theoretical physics 1, 2 Berlin as its global capital 1

  PD introduces a new approach to 1

  Weyl’s approach 1

  Thomson, J. J. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

  Tilley, Peter 1

  Times, The 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

  Tkachenko, Vladimir 1, 2n33

  Todd, Horace 1n2

  Tollast, Robert 1

  Tolstoy, Count Leo 1 Anna Karenina 1

  War and Peace 1

  Tomonaga, Sin-Itiro 1

  Tots and Quots dining club 1

  Trans-Siberian Railway 1

  transformation theory 1, 2, 3

  transistors 1

  Trieste symposium (1971) 1

  Trinity College, Cambridge 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13

  Trotsky, Leon 1

  Troyanovsky, Aleksandr 1, 2

  Truman, Harry S. 1, 2, 3

  ‘Tube Alloys’ project 1, 2, 3

  tuberculosis 1, 2, 3, 4, 5n23

  Turin Shroud 1, 2n28

  Turing, Alan 1

  Tyndall, Arthur 1, 2, 3, 4

  uncertainty principle 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

  Under the Banner of Marxism journal 1

  UNESCO 1

  United States of America development of quantum mechanics 1

  PD’s first visit (1929) 1, 2

  PD’s 1931 visit 1, 2

  depression in 1

  Einstein emigrates to 1

  prominent role in the Second World War 1

  American-led experiments to build a

  nuclear bomb 1, 2

  funding of theoretical physics 1

  anti-Communist paranoia (1950s) 1

  space programme 1

  Judy settles in 1

  PD’s regular visits 1

  universe expanding 1, 2

  ‘primitive atom’ theory 1, 2

  University of Aarhus, Denmark 1

  University of Bristol 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 University Engineering Society 1

  Dirac Centenary Meeting (2002) 1

  Faculty of Engineering 1

  mathematics department 1

  PD declines an honorary degree 1

  PD takes the qualifying examinations early 1n40

  PD’s FRS election 1

  University of British Columbia 1

  University of California at Berkeley 1, 2, 3

  University of Cambridge see Cambridge University

  University of Florida, Gainesville 1

  University of Geneva 1

  University of Leiden, Netherlands 1

  University of Liverpool 1

  University of London 1

  University of Madison, Wisconsin 1, 2

  University of Manchester 1

  University of Miami 1, 2, 3, 4n6, 5n47

  University of Minnesota 1

  University of Nebraska 1

  University of Swansea 1

  University of Texas at Austin 1, 2n6

  Updike, John 1

  uranium 1 235 isotope 1, 2, 3, 4

  238 isotope 1, 2, 3

  Urey, Harold 1

  utilitarianism 1, 2, 3n53

  vacuum concept 1, 2, 3

  vacuum cleaner 1

  Valais canton, Switzerland 1

  Van Vleck, John 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10n5

  Vancouver 1, 2

  VE-Day celebrations 1

  Veblen, Oswald 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

  Veltman, Martin 1, 2

  Vermont 1, 2

  Victoria, Queen 1

  Vienna 1

  Vietnam war 1, 2

  Vieux, Annette (née Giroud; PD’s paternal great-grandmother) 1n10

  Viktor Frankl Institute, Vienna 1

  virtual states 1

  Vladikavkas 1

  Vladivostock 1

  von Neumann, John 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

  VSO (MI5 informant) 1, 2

  Wakulla river 1

  Waldegrave, William, Baron Waldegrave of North Hill 1, 2n51, 3n1

  Wall Street crash (1929) 1

  Waller, Ivar 1, 2, 3n5

  Walters, Barbara: How to Talk to Practically Anybody about Practically Anything 1

  Walton, Ernest 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

  Walton, Sir William 1

  Washington, D.C. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

  Watt, Dr Hansell 1, 2, 3

  Wattenberg, Al 1

  Waugh, Evelyn: Brideshead Revisited 1

  wavicle 1

  weak interaction 1, 2, 3, 4, 5n7

  Wei Chi (a
.k.a. Go) 1, 2

  Weimar Republic 1

  Weinberg, Steven 1, 2

  Weinberg-Salam theory 1

  Weisskopf, Vicki 1, 2, 3

  Wells, H. G. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 The Time Machine 1

  The World Set Free 1

  Westminster Abbey, London 1, 2, 3, 4n32

  Weyl, Hermann 1, 2, 3, 4

  Wheeler, John 1, 2, 3

  Whewell, William 1

  Whiston, William 1

  White, Sir George 1

  Whitehead, Henry 1, 2

  Whitehead, Right Reverend Henry 1, 2

  Whitehead, Isabel 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8n22

  Whittaker, Edmund 1

  Wigner, Amelia (née Frank) 1, 2, 3, 4n53

  Wigner, Jeno (later Eugene) 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10n35 childhood 1

  field theory of the electron 1

  personality 1, 2

  and PD’s impoliteness 1

  aims to bring modern quantum mechanics to Princeton 1

  at the University of Madison 1

  marriage to Amelia 1, 2n53

  and nuclear fission 1

  marriage to Mary 1

  and nuclear weapons 1

  organises ‘The Future of Nuclear Science’ conference 1

  on Feynman and PD 1

  and Kuhn’s interviewing of PD 1

  an elder statesman of American science 1

  and Judy’s disappearance 1

  Manci’s response to his death 1

  The Recollections of Eugene P. Wigner 1

  Wigner, Mary 1

  Wilczek, Frank 1

  Wilde, Oscar 1, 2 The American Invasion 1

  The Importance of Being Earnest 1

  Wilhelm II, Kaiser 1, 2

  Wilkinson, Sir Denys 1n11

  Williams, Edith 1

  Willis, D. C. 1

  Wiltshire, Herbert Charles (Charlie) 1, 2, 3

  Wisconsin Journal 1

  Witten, Edward 1, 2n25

  Wittgenstein, Ludwig 1

  Wolverhampton 1, 2, 3

  Woolf, Virginia 1

  Wordie, James 1, 2n17

  Wordsworth, William 1, 2, 3, 4 The Prelude 1

  Wu, Chien-Shiung 1

  X-rays 1, 2, 3