Graham’s first biography, about the British physicist Paul Dirac (1902-1984), helped to bring him to the attention of many readers who knew little or nothing about him.

 

When the book was published in the UK, in 2009, it generated a surprising amount of interest in the media. ‘I am extremely grateful to Neil Belton, at that time a senior editor at Faber,’ Graham said. ‘He was one of the few people in publishing who were prepared to gamble that a virtually unknown author (me) could write for a wide audience about a scientist unfamiliar to few outside the world of physics.’

Six Themes of The Strangest Man

01

‘I Never Had a Childhood’

Dirac’s family rarely had visitors. At home, his father spoke to him only in French, his mother only in English.
02

‘Quantum Pioneer’

Dirac co‑invented quantum mechanics and was the first to marry it to the special theory of relativity in his theory of the electron.
03

Antimatter’s Conceiver

Dirac conceived half the early universe in his head: he predicted the existence of the anti‑electron in 1931, a year before it was observed.
04

Opposites

In 1937, Dirac married the Hungarian divorcée Manci Balazs. The unlikely couple had two daughters.
05

Religion of Mathematical Beauty

For Dirac, mathematical beauty was “almost a religion” — he believed that successive fundamental theories were increasingly beautiful.
06

A Stick Figure

Playwright Tom Stoppard remarked that Dirac was long reputed to be “a stick figure” among the pioneers of quantum physics. The Strangest Man shows he was far more interesting than most people believed.

Reviewers’ comments

“Did Paul Dirac, a supreme theoretical physicist -- the Einstein of quantum mechanics -- have Asperger's syndrome? Certainly he was a very peculiar man, but brilliant and compelling, as Farmelo's wonderful and sensitive portrait brings out.”

Oliver Sachs

“This biography is a gift. [..] the most satisfying and memorable biography I have read in years.”

Louisa GilderNew York Times

“Fascinating reading… Graham Farmelo has done a splendid job of portraying Dirac and his world. The biography is a major achievement.”

Peter HiggsTimes (UK)

“If Newton was the Shakespeare of British physics, Dirac was its Milton, the most fascinating and enigmatic of all our great scientists. And he now has a biography to match his talents: a wonderful book by Graham Farmelo. The story it tells is moving, sometimes comic, sometimes infinitely sad, and goes to the roots of what we mean by truth in science.”

Daily Telegraph, UK

“A marvelously rich and intimate study.”

Brian CathcartNew Statesman

“[A] sympathetic portrait….Of the small group of young men who developed quantum mechanics and revolutionized physics almost a century ago, he truly stands out. Paul Dirac was a strange man in a strange world. This biography, long overdue, is most welcome.”

The Economist

“A page-turner about Dirac and quantum physics seems a contradiction in terms, but Graham Farmelo’s new book, The Strangest Man, is an eminently readable account of the developments in physics throughout the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s and the life of one of the discipline’s key scientists.”

Jocelyn Bell BurnellTimes Higher

“Enthralling… Regardless of whether Dirac was autistic or simply unpleasant, he is an icon of modern thought and Farmelo’s book gives us a genuine insight into his life and times.”

New Scientist

“Graham Farmelo succeeds brilliantly in bringing this shadowy figure into three dimensions”

Georgina FerryGuardian

“Graham Farmelo has managed to haul Dirac onstage in an affectionate and meticulously researched book that illuminates both his era and his science.”

Sara LippincottLos Angeles Times

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