<story><title>Paul Dirac&apos;s handwritten notes for his PhD, the first ever on quantum mechanics</title><url>http://academia.edu/323246/PhD_Thesis_of_Paul_Dirac</url><text></text></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>keithflower</author><text>&lt;i&gt;&amp;quot;...Dirac was absorbed in writing his Ph.D. thesis, a compact presentation of his vision of quantum mechanics. Confident though he was of his understanding of the theory, he knew as he wrote his thesis that it was not the whole story, for he had recently heard than an alternative version of quantum theory had appeared, one that completely different from Heisenberg&amp;#x27;s. The author of the new version was the Austrian theoretician Erwin Schrodinger, working in Zürich. He was 38 years old, a generation older then than Heisenberg and Dirac, with a formidable reputation in Europe as a brilliant polymath.&lt;p&gt;Dirac ignored Schrodinger&amp;#x27;s theory in his PhD thesis &amp;quot;Quantum Mechanics&amp;quot;, the first to be submitted anywhere on the subject. The thesis was a great success with his examiners who took the unusual step on 19 June of sending him a short hand written letter congratulating him on the &amp;quot;exceptional distinction&amp;quot; of his work.&lt;p&gt;....Dirac disliked celebrations and formality, so he was almost certainly not looking forward to the ceremony. He could have taken the degree without attending it but decided to be there in person for the sake of his proud parents, especially this father, who had given him the money that enabled him to begin his Cambridge studies.&lt;p&gt;...Wearing evening dress with a white bow tie, a small black cap and black silk down with a scarlet-lined hood, he knelt on a velvet cushion, placed his hands together and held them out to be grasped by the Vice Chancellor, who delivered a prayer-like oration. Dirac arose, a doctor.&lt;p&gt;Like his father, he had no need of holidays – the long vacations were not for relaxing but for hard work. The university was about to hibernate for the summer and would be virtually devoid of social distractions for the few scholars remaining. It was the perfect environment for Dirac to concentrate even more intensively on his work. Heisenberg and Schrodinger had knifed a sack of gemstones, and the race was on to pick out the diamonds.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;-- Graham Farmelo, The Strangest Man</text></comment>
<story><title>Paul Dirac&apos;s handwritten notes for his PhD, the first ever on quantum mechanics</title><url>http://academia.edu/323246/PhD_Thesis_of_Paul_Dirac</url><text></text></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>nrmn</author><text>Here is a link to the pdf to save anyone from the signup process. Which was painfully long and annoying.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/155545/dirac_1926_dissertation.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;dl.dropboxusercontent.com&amp;#x2F;u&amp;#x2F;155545&amp;#x2F;dirac_1926_disser...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>