Questions tagged [dirac]
The dirac tag has no usage guidance.
9
questions
3
votes
2
answers
153
views
Dirac’s debt to Hamilton
According to Tobias Hurter’s popular exposition Too Big for a Single Mind (narrated in the present tense):
Dirac makes use of an elegant mathematical tool developed by the Irish mathematician William ...
- 401
2
votes
0
answers
77
views
Was there any discourse between Dirac and Einstein that was recorded in print or noted?
I read in Wiki they were together at the Solvay Conderence. There is also a note from 1926 letter to Paul Ehrenfest, Albert Einstein wrote of a Dirac paper, "I am toiling over Dirac. This ...
- 1,223
1
vote
0
answers
60
views
Who first stated the three polarizers experiment in quantum mechanics?
In my experience, Dirac is most often cited as the origin of this thought experiment. However, from what I've read in his Principles of Quantum Mechanics, he never actually introduces the idea with ...
- 1,129
2
votes
0
answers
382
views
What did Einstein say about the Dirac equation?
The wiki article on Dirac quotes Einstein as saying of Dirac
I have trouble with Dirac. This balancing on the dizzying path between genius and madness is awful.
and
I don't understand Dirac at all.
...
- 165
2
votes
0
answers
160
views
The original Dirac equation
In the original 1928 paper (pdf) the Dirac equation appears on page 615 in equation (9) as
$$
[p_0+\rho_1\left(\boldsymbol{\sigma},\boldsymbol{p}\right)+\rho_3mc]\psi=0\qquad(1)
$$
Using the ...
- 21
4
votes
1
answer
145
views
Original mathematical foundation of Dirac's function
In which paper/book (most likely) by either Sobolev or Schwartz is the Dirac function properly and explicitly substantiated as a functional (tempered distribution), preferably quoting Dirac's name? I ...
- 352
1
vote
0
answers
32
views
Dirac's non-neglibile disturbances argument and epistemic quantum mechanics
Here is Dirac's argument about one reason to motivate quantum mechanics:
"It is usually assumed that, by being careful, we may cut down the disturbance accompanying our observation to any desired ...
- 111
5
votes
1
answer
349
views
Why is Dirac delta named after Dirac when the concept was already over two centuries old?
Please explain why the Dirac delta function was named after Dirac, who lived in the 20th century, and what was so special about it.
I ask this because it is used in Green's function which pre-dated ...
- 61
14
votes
2
answers
2k
views
Was Dirac really trying to take the square root of the Klein-Gordon operator?
As a student of physics one will, on several occasions, indubitably hear professors or other physicists (here is an example, from Physics.SE's highest-rep user John Rennie) tell the famous story that ...
Danu♦
- 3,812