1902 – Dirac – bio
Paul Dirac was born in 1902 in Bristol, England. He was a mathematician and physicist who helped to develop quantum mechanics and discovered an equation that successfully predicted anti-matter.
In 1928 he created the Dirac equation which provides a mathematical description of elementary particles that is consistent with both relativity and quantum mechanics. The equation also predicted the existence of antimatter particles which were later discovered, confirming the equation.
In 1930 he published “Principles of Quantum Mechanics” which helped to converge the wave mechanics equations of Erwin Schroedinger and the matrix mechanics equations of Werner Heisenberg.
Dirac is credited with the creation of transformation theory, which is the modern operator calculus for quantum theory. He is considered to be a co-founder of quantum mechanics and quantum electrodynamics and the creator of quantum field theory.
PREREQUISITE:
1781 – Poisson
1831 – Maxwell
CONCURRENT:
1879 – Einstein
1885 – Bohr
1887 – Schroedinger
1900 – Pauli
1901 – Fermi
1901 – Heisenberg
1902 – Jordan
1902 – Wigner
1904 – Oppenheimer
1905 – Anderson
1906 – Bethe
SUBSEQUENT:
1918 – Feynman
1918 – Schwinger
1923 – Dyson
1926 – Salam
1929 – Higgs
1932 – Glashow
1933 – Weinberg
