Oddlet: Paul Dirac · 1 min read
Jun 20, 2026
The Second Television
Paul Dirac's colleagues measured his speech in a unit they invented: one word per hour.
Paul Dirac co-founded quantum mechanics, won the 1933 Nobel, predicted antimatter in a single equation, and held Newton's old chair at Cambridge for thirty-seven years. He was also, by the measure of his colleagues at St John's, the quietest man on the premises. They coined a unit in his honour. One dirac equalled one word per hour.
The silence was not shyness. It was method. He had been taught at school, he once explained to Bohr, never to begin a sentence without knowing how it would end.
The method travelled with him. On a train through the English countryside, Pauli remarked that the sheep looked freshly shorn; Dirac considered this, and offered, "At least on this side." On a boat to Japan in 1929, after Heisenberg described dancing as a pleasure when the girls were nice, Dirac thought for a quarter of an hour and asked how one could know beforehand that the girls were nice. What Heisenberg made of this is not recorded.
Then, in Tallahassee in the 1970s, he and his wife Manci disagreed over whether to watch a television special featuring the pop singer Cher.
He bought a second television.
He watched alone.
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- Wikipedia — Paul Dirac — Comprehensive biographical overview: dates, education, family, positions, awards, marriage to Margit Wigner, the 'dirac' unit anecdote.
- Nobel Prize official biographical sketch (1933) — Authoritative primary biographical statement: birth date, Bristol birthplace, B.Sc. Engineering, Cambridge Ph.D., Lucasian Professor 1932, FRS 1930, marriage to Margit Wigner 1937.
- Encyclopaedia Britannica — P.A.M. Dirac — Concise reference summary: birth/death, Lucasian Chair as Newton's former chair, antimatter prediction, Nobel sharing, FSU appointment.
- MacTutor History of Mathematics — Dirac biography — Detailed childhood: father Charles from Monthey Switzerland, French-only dinner rule, split family meals, Felix's March 1925 suicide, 'I feel much freer now' after his father's death.
- Wikiquote — Paul Dirac — Catalogues verified vs. unsourced quotes. Confirms 'In science... in poetry it's the exact opposite' (Jungk 1958) and Pauli 'no God and Dirac is his prophet' (Heisenberg, Physics and Beyond, 1971).
- Westminster Abbey — Paul Dirac commemoration
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