The spellbinding story of the man hailed as the greatest physicist since Newton.
Paul Dirac was one of the leading pioneers of the great revolution in 20th century science: quantum mechanics. The youngest theoretician ever to win the Nobel Prize for Physics, he was also pathologically reticent, strangely literal-minded and legendarily unable to communicate or empathise. 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. Farmelo 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.