The Strangest Man: The Hidden Life of Paul Dirac, Quantum Genius

»The Strangest Man« by Graham Farmelo is the Costa Biography Award-winning report about Paul Dirac, the famous physicist sometimes called the British Einstein. He was one of the leading pioneers of the greatest revolution in twentieth-century science: quantum mechanics. And in 1933, he became the youngest theoretician ever to win the Nobel Prize for Physics. Dirac was strangely reticent, literal-minded and his inhibited way of communicating and lack of empathy became legendary. Through his greatest period of productivity, his postcards home contained only remarks about the weather. Based on a previously undiscovered archive of family papers, Graham Farmelo celebrates Dirac's massive scientific achievement while drawing a compassionate portrait of his life and work. He shows a man who, while hopelessly socially inept, could manage to love and sustain close friendship. »The Strangest Man« is an extraordinary and moving human story, as well as a study of one of the most exciting times in scientific history. [Source: Springer Verlag]

The bestseller, published in America in 2009, has now been translated into German by Prof. Dr. Reimara Rössler. She will read from the book during the evening.