Related papers: Wigner's Sisters
Paul A. M. Dirac has been undoubtedly one of the central figures of the last century physics, contributing in several and remarkable ways to the development of Quantum Mechanics (QM); he was also at the centre of an active community of…
Credible reasons are presented to reveal that many of the lingering century old enigmas, surrounding the behavior of at least an individual quantum particle, can be comprehended in terms of an objectively real specific wave function. This…
I shall use a few personal reminiscences of my time as a student and colleague of Dirac in Cambridge to introduce some reflections on the nature of research in theoretical physics. I shall discuss and illustrate the approach of Dirac to his…
Wigner's "unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics" in physics can be understood as a reflection of a deep and unexpected unity between the fundamental structures of mathematics and of physics. Some of the history of evidence for this is…
In these shorts notes I want to remembermy relationship with GianCarlo Ghirardi, who was my supervisor in my Master Degree in Physics at the University of Trieste and then he became a very deep and close friend. I don't want to describe in…
Abdus Salam was known for his `grand views', grand views of science as well as grand views of society. In this talk the grand view of theoretical physics is put in perspective.
Some years ago, one of the authors~(MM) revived a concept to which he gave the name of single-particle Dirac oscillator, while another~(CQ) showed that it corresponds to a realization of supersymmetric quantum mechanics. The Dirac…
In 1919 A. Einstein suspected first that gravitational fields could play an essential role in the structure of elementary particles. In 1937, P.A.M. Dirac found a miraculous link between the properties of the visible Universe and elementary…
The Dirac equation is a cornerstone of modern particle physics, which integrates special relativity and quantum mechanics into a consistent framework, yielding the prediction of electron and its antiparticle counterpart, positron. The Dirac…
In 1931, Dirac advanced a startling prediction about the existence of a new elementary particle, characterized by a magnetic charge of a single polarity: the magnetic monopole. This prediction, that was not based on experimental reasons but…
Based on the results of F. Wilf on the need to take into account the quantum-mechanical correspondence rules in the Dirac equation for an electron, it was shown that the equation obtained by giving physical meaning to $\alpha$-Dirac…
Brief recollections of two giants of physics, their origins, similarities and differences.
In 1963, Eugene Paul Wigner was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for his contributions to the theory of the atomic nucleus and the elementary particles, particularly through the discovery and application of fundamental symmetry…
The exact agreement between the Sommerfeld (1916) and Dirac (1928) results for the energy levels of the relativistic hydrogen atom (the so-called "Sommerfeld puzzle") is analyzed and extended. Werner Heisenberg called this coincidence a…
This Introduction opens the book {\sl Standing Together in Troubled Times} which presents a story of friendship between Wolfgang Pauli, one of the greatest theoretical physicists of the 20th century, and Charlotte Houtermans. They met at…
The relativistic positive-energy wave equation proposed by P. Dirac in 1971 is an old but largely forgotten subject. The purpose of this note is to speculate that particles described by this equation (called here Dirac particles) are…
The notions of \emph{Poisson Lie group} and \emph{Poisson homogeneous space} are extended to the Dirac category. The theorem of Drinfel$'$d (\cite{Drinfeld93}) on the one-to-one correspondence between Poisson homogeneous spaces of a Poisson…
The quantum theory of relativistic particles, based on the first quantization technique similar to that used by Schroedinger and Dirac in formulating quantum mechanics, is reconsidered on the basis of a photon-like dispersion relation…
The Dirac wave equation for the electron soon lead to the recognition of the Zitterbewegung. This was studied both by Schrodinger and Dirac. Later there were further elegant and sometimes dissenting insights, from different authors. We…
I provide a very brief sketch of some of Dirac's interests and work in gravity, particularly his Hamiltonian formulation of Einstein's theory and its relation to his earlier research.