The Second Television

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.