The Strangest Man

The Hidden Life of Paul Dirac, Mystic of the Atom

By: Graham Farmelo

Narrated by: B. J. Harrison

Length: 19 hrs and 28 mins

Publisher's summary

Paul Dirac was among the great scientific geniuses of the modern age. One of the discoverers of quantum mechanics, the most revolutionary theory of the past century, his contributions had a unique insight, eloquence, clarity, and mathematical power. His prediction of antimatter was one of the greatest triumphs in the history of physics.

One of Einstein's most admired colleagues, Dirac was in 1933 the youngest theoretician ever to win the Nobel Prize in physics. Dirac's personality is legendary. He was an extraordinarily reserved loner, relentlessly literal-minded, and appeared to have no empathy with most people. Yet he was a family man and was intensely loyal to his friends. His tastes in the arts ranged from Beethoven to Cher, from Rembrandt to Mickey Mouse.

Based on previously undiscovered archives, The Strangest Man reveals the many facets of Dirac's brilliantly original mind. A compelling human story, The Strangest Man also depicts a spectacularly exciting era in scientific history.

©2009 Graham Farmello (P)2009 Audible, Inc.

Critic reviews

• 2009 Costa Book Award (Biography)
• 100 Notable Books of 2009 (New York Times)
• Books of the Year 2009 (The Economist)
• Los Angeles Times Book Prize, Science & Technology, 2010

"Farmelo proves himself a wizard at explaining the arcane aspects of particle physics. His great affection for his odd but brilliant subject shows on every page, giving Dirac the biography any great scientist deserves." ( Publishers Weekly)

"A must-read for anyone interested in the extraordinary power of pure thought. With this revelatory, moving and definitive biography, Graham Farmelo provides the first real glimpse inside the bizarre mind of Paul Dirac." (Roger Highfield, Editor, New Scientist)

Strangely awesome!

At first, I didn't think I would enjoy listening to the biography of a physicist, the subject alone seems daunting. But the author did a great job describing science in the simplest form that even a 5th grader could understand. I learned a lot from this book and highly recommend it to everyone.

This is an excellent book

This is an excellent book, an excellent subject, and an excellent performance. One of the best books I've read.

Struggled thru narration for the sake of story

It is one of those cases when the narration works against the content. Just out of respect to the complexity of the subject in which Dirac excelled and the intensity of molding of his own individuality over decades and epochs, one revolts against the narration's idiotically repetitive inflections with very occasional regard to meaning. Two fairly straightforward Russian names - Gamov and Kapitsa are brutalized to the point of parody. Kapitsa is a presence throughout most of the story. I winced every time the name was articulated. The Quantum Mechanics fellowship of the 20th century was a multinational crowd with some foreign sounding names - does the job description of the audiobook narrator actually include at least checking the pronunciation of the names and the terminology?
The story itself is deeply researched and put together in a thoughtful and colorful way. I wanted to have more of the intellectual context but I appreciate the amount of material the author went through in reconstructing the personal history of Paul Dirac. Since it's an audiobook, the quality of the story absolutely needs be matched with the quality of the delivery.

powerful

I'm out of words to convince you this is a good listen.
so I hope you like it.

Would not have wanted to be the producer on this

There were a lot of points in the recording where new recordings were dubbed in, mostly whenever the narrator mentioned Kapitza. Plenty of others though. At times it felt like the recording was stitched together.

Excellent biography of great physicist

I am listening to The Strangest Man The Hidden Life of Paul Direc and enjoying it very much BUT the reader makes a critical error at 6:25 into the first part. He adds "not" to a sentence describing Dirac's most important equation, the work for which he received the Nobel prize. One of the outstanding features is that the equation predicts the electron's spin. But the reader says "these properties could NOT have been predicted using the special theory of relativity and quantum mechanics." I check the book and the NOT is not in the text. Audible needs to correct this error as the mispeaking misrepresents both science and Dirac's most impressive work.

Great work about great man

An unusual biography I found hard to put down. Especially enjoyed accounts of the interactions between the main characters in the quantum game. I've recommended the work to quite a few people and will continue to do so.

Thought the reader was quite good, but he ought to have sought help with the pronunciation of the names of certain persons and places. One of his worst was Caius College at Cambridge.

fascinating !

fascinating account of Dirac's life and 20th century physics revolution, with deep insights on the dark periods of war and post war eras.

A fantastic and all-encompassing view of Dirac

A really well written biography of one of the greatest scientists to ever live. Farmelo does an amazing job of making the extremely taciturn Dirac come to life and reveals all the intricacies of his personality and the various relationships he had as well as diving into his ideas and work.

Excellent, well written and narrated biography

Fantastic book. It is in a class with Nasar's A Beautiful Mind and Isaacson's Einstein: His Life and Universe. I only wish it when a bit deeper in the math and physics, similar to Derbyshire's Prime Obsession: Bernhard Riemann and the Greatest Unsolved Problem in Mathematics. Very listenable narrator. I enjoyed his impersonation of Dirac.