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The life-changing love of Paul Dirac (2015)
- BigHatLogan 6y agoThat's a touching story, and it illustrates something I've been thinking about recently: that we're not as "rational" as we think we are, to a certain extent, because all of our current rationality depends on everything that has happened, not everything that will happen in the future. Paul Dirac, an absolutely brilliant man, decided early on that his life "was mainly concerned with facts and not feelings." In a sense he planned his life out with imperfect information--as we all do--until something came along and completely turned his life around, in this case his future wife. I think that's a hopeful message? That your life and your thoughts are limited by all that has happened to you, not by what hasn't happened to you yet, by definition, because you can't imagine a future that hasn't happened to you. I know, anecdotally, a handful of people who swore off marriage in their 20s, only to turn right around and get married in their 30s after meeting somebody who changed their minds. The same is true for academics and, really, everything--a student who resigns himself to hating math until he finds a teacher who understands his feelings, etc. Or maybe it's late and I'm rambling. Either way, I really enjoyed reading this essay.
- raducu 6y agoThat's not rambling at all. No matter what you believe about humans -- that we have a soul or we are (just) very complex biological machinery, in the end, everything scientists do, do for human kind. High achieving scientists tend to start by focusing on logic and "reason", and that's why they become high achieving. But there is no reason not to explore our humanness later in life. Even if MBTI is regarded as pseudoscience, as an INTJ, I know that later in life I must explore and improve my not so developed soft skills, and it only feels natural.
- lain__ 6y agoI, and everyone I know, have found the enneagram to be much more predictive and comprehensive of people's behaviour and how they think. (And much more helpful too) https://www.eclecticenergies.com/enneagram/test https://www.eclecticenergies.com/enneagram/test https://www.reddit.com/r/Enneagram/comments/dc4g4i/a_comprehensive_guide_to_all_things_enneagram/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Enneagram/comments/dc4g4i/a_compreh...
- mywittyname 6y agoPeople need to experience love to know that they want it. I suspect most people develop a desire for love from their parents, family, peers, and books/media. And that desire evolves into a more romantic notion of love as they mature. The article briefly suggested that love was not something Dirac had received from his family, so he likely didn't know. If he indeed was a strange outsider among his peers and only read technical books, I can see how he managed to go so many years without developing much desire for an emotional connection with someone else. It's not mentioned in the article, but I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that his reticence to engaging with Manci was probably the result of one or more terrible experiences with women which were likely caused by his social awkwardness. I feel like "rationality" is really a mask that people use to avoid addressing difficult emotions like this. Growing up to be socially stunted is a very difficult handicap to deal with. Not least of all because it's imperceptible to the very people it effects.
- SideburnsOfDoom 6y ago"A man can do what he wants, but not choose what he wants" - Schopenhauer
- lowkeynthorough 6y ago:o the original Manci Pixie Dream girl https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manic_Pixie_Dream_Girl https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manic_Pixie_Dream_Girl
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- ahartmetz 6y agoThat seems a bit disrespectul as a summary, even though I have to grudgingly admit that it's not wrong... It would have been nice for the article to say more about the woman, which would have mostly avoided the cliché!
- boomboomsubban 6y agoI read the biography the article draws from and it also did not mention that much about her or their relationship. It delved deeply into Dirac's childhood, but mostly ignored his home life as an adult. It makes some sense, it is a biography of Dirac, but felt strange at the time.
- mlang23 6y agoBut the whole article is a cliché! The socially incompetent techie who is rescued by love from his rationality. I dont wanna guess how many readers here secretly hope for this event to occur at some point. Like in the story, ideally they'd not even have to court the woman. She would just appear and take care of them. Cliché!
- lcuff 6y agoIt does echo a bad Nicholas Sparks novel (they're all bad). But when the cliché is writ large in real life, it's touching, no? Secretly hoping for _something_ to magically rescue us from the emotional difficulties of our lives ... of course. Likelihood of it happening: (1.0 e -42).
- teekert 6y ago
- YeGoblynQueenne 6y agoInteresting article. Title needs (2015).
- hackeraccount 6y agoFrom the title I thought I'd be R. Feynman.
- xenonite 6y agoThe story also suits the Sheldon character from the Big Bang Theory serial.
- pge 6y agoSounds like a graph of the quality of his relationships with other human beings would have a spike at only one point and zero everywhere else...
- neilv 6y ago> Dirac pondered this for some minutes before responding, “But Heisenberg, how do you know beforehand that the girls are nice?”
- eigenhombre 6y agoPerhaps Heisenberg was willing to accept some... uncertainty in his life?
- prmph 6y agoIndeed, he probably did not live strictly by principle as we imagine
- evanb 6y agoDirac used to introduce her as "Wigner's sister" rather than "my wife".
- karlicoss 6y agoIf you want to learn a bit more about Dirac's life, I really recommend reading "The Strangest Man" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Strangest_Man https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Strangest_Man
- uwagar 6y agowhy should someone be 'less than fully human' if they dont have 'feelings', particularly of the romantic kind. we accept people of different sexual orientations. we should accept people of all emotional orientations too.
- Wolfenstein98k 6y agoAgreed in principle, but even Dirac felt his life was richer for it. "Feelings" are part of the human condition. They're worth some work.
- uwagar 6y ago'even Dirac': just a human. one human is not superior to another. people say things - even in their autobiographies - that they dont fully subscribe to. they worry about how they will be perceived for their true feelings.
- Wolfenstein98k 6y agoPerhaps. But second-guessing people's statements based on what you imagine their inner thoughts are is a risky venture at best.
- JoeAltmaier 6y agoCuriously, nothing is said about how this 'life-changing' love actually changed his life and work.
- wackro 6y agoYou seem to have somehow missed the part where he dicovered a new outlook and gained the ability to feel.
- JoeAltmaier 6y agoYeah sure. But how about, did he do any more physics? The guy was defined by that. If he lost anything there, it would be more significant to history. But nothing mentioned.
- failrate 6y agoConsidering that we do not have the ability to walk down the alternative path where they did not meet, it is impossible to know whether it was a bonus or impediment to his scientific work. As opposed to Erdős, where we know what happened when he kicked speed for a month.
- algorithmsRcool 6y ago> After returning from a visit with her in Budapest, Dirac wrote, “I felt very sad leaving you and still feel that I miss you very much. I do not understand why this should be, as I do not usually miss people when I leave them.” This line is like something out of a movie.
- scottlocklin 6y ago> “A single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.” I don't understand how this is supposed to be some kind of heart warming story. I mean.... maybe it was something nice for Dirac, but it sounds as much like a ruthless sociopath hunting a the man down like a zebra on the Serengeti plain. I guess there were kids at least! But otherwise there's no indication Dirac ... was any more (or to be fair less) happy afterwords.
- BMSmnqXAE4yfe1 6y agoSo what are they saying, women should court incels?
- draw_down 6y agoIt is really wonderful when you get to know someone and they show you a whole new part of life you hadn't experienced before. I think it's a big mistake to close off the possibility of such things ("my life is about facts not feelings"), but then again I have no Nobel prizes to my name.
- edibleEnergy 6y agoI listened to a very good 'In Our Time' podcast episode about Paul Dirac recently: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000fw0p https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000fw0p
- Wolfenstein98k 6y agoThis is really sweet. Not much to say... Life is meant to be lived. Don't forget to live it.
- OneGuy123 6y agoHis father caused his "lack of desire to speak" by beating him for each speaking error while he was a child. Dirac solved this error as best as a child could: by not speaking. This trauma lasted to his death. Someone will now say "citation needed", and to those people I give these 2 books to read and what I wrote above will become as clear as day. Alice Miller: The Drama of the Gifted Child Alice Miller: The Body Never Lies
- da39a3ee 6y agoHe said quite a few words in succession on religion. Somehow most of a century later, the intelligentsia persists in claiming that views such as these (i.e. those also of Dawkins et al.) are somehow "childish" or "culturally illiterate". I cannot understand why we idle discussing religion. If we are honest—and scientists have to be—we must admit that religion is a jumble of false assertions, with no basis in reality. The very idea of God is a product of the human imagination. It is quite understandable why primitive people, who were so much more exposed to the overpowering forces of nature than we are today, should have personified these forces in fear and trembling. But nowadays, when we understand so many natural processes, we have no need for such solutions. I can't for the life of me see how the postulate of an Almighty God helps us in any way. What I do see is that this assumption leads to such unproductive questions as why God allows so much misery and injustice, the exploitation of the poor by the rich and all the other horrors He might have prevented. If religion is still being taught, it is by no means because its ideas still convince us, but simply because some of us want to keep the lower classes quiet. Quiet people are much easier to govern than clamorous and dissatisfied ones. They are also much easier to exploit. Religion is a kind of opium that allows a nation to lull itself into wishful dreams and so forget the injustices that are being perpetrated against the people. Hence the close alliance between those two great political forces, the State and the Church. Both need the illusion that a kindly God rewards—in heaven if not on earth—all those who have not risen up against injustice, who have done their duty quietly and uncomplainingly. That is precisely why the honest assertion that God is a mere product of the human imagination is branded as the worst of all mortal sins.
- luord 6y agoOne of my hobbies is reading (and writing, one day) short romance stories, another one is reading factoids about distinguished people, specially scientists. I was grinning like a fool through most of this article. I like this because it generally asserts that anyone, even someone as apparently closed off as Dirac, can find love and/or happiness.
- pvitz 6y agoDirac himself told the reason of why he didn't talk much differently: Wigner: How much did you talk to your parents? Dirac: Very little. My father made the rule that I should only talk to him in French. He thought it would be good for me to learn French in that way. Since I found that I couldn’t express myself in French, it was better for me to stay silent than to talk in English. Source: https://www.aip.org/history-programs/niels-bohr-library/oral-histories/4575-1 https://www.aip.org/history-programs/niels-bohr-library/oral...
- kumarvvr 6y agoPerhaps his human side was suppressed. People with high IQs, who win Nobel prizes are more complex than the average joe. Their motivations, inspirations and behaviour, perhaps, needs a different perspective than normal analysis. Its a wonderful article, but seems to suggest that his human nature was non existant, rather than hidden. This I find is unbelievable. Perhaps he never had a chance to truly explore his human side, mainly because those who tried to make him explore were not patient nor persistant.