{"id":386,"date":"2018-02-25T16:15:13","date_gmt":"2018-02-25T16:15:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/andrew-may.com\/blog\/?p=386"},"modified":"2018-02-25T16:15:13","modified_gmt":"2018-02-25T16:15:13","slug":"dirac-on-einstein","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/andrew-may.com\/blog\/2018\/02\/dirac-on-einstein\/","title":{"rendered":"Dirac on Einstein"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I was going through some old audio cassettes I recorded from the radio when I was a student, and came across a really interesting little snippet. It\u2019s the physicist Paul Dirac reminiscing about Einstein on a BBC programme, though I\u2019m afraid I\u2019ve no idea which one. The note I made at the time says \u201crecorded in March 1979&#8243; \u2013 when Dirac would have been 76 (he lived to 82).<\/p>\n<p>Although the quote is very short, it\u2019s really fascinating \u2013 and a Google search didn\u2019t turn up any other references to it. So I made a little YouTube video of it, which hopefully the following link will take you to:<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Dirac on Einstein\" width=\"525\" height=\"295\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/JZAISWKj3Pk?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Here is my transcript of what Dirac has to say about Einstein:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>He wasn\u2019t merely trying to construct theories to agree with observation. So many people do that; Einstein worked quite differently. He tried to imagine \u201cIf I were God, would I have made the world like this?\u201d \u2013 and according to the answer to that question, he would decide on whether he liked a particular theory or not.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>And I can&#8217;t resist adding a couple of Amazon links for my own book about Einstein:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The British version \u2013 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.co.uk\/gp\/product\/0750963808\/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1634&amp;creative=6738&amp;creativeASIN=0750963808&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=forteana-21&amp;linkId=bf411b702f9afae27cfbf53ccebbd686\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>Albert Einstein: Pocket Giants<\/em><\/a><\/li>\n<li>The US version \u2013 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/1502624419\/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=1502624419&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=forteana-20&amp;linkId=05d7be04667a5b2d176338ef1537c397\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>Albert Einstein: Scientist (History Makers)<\/em><\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/andrew-may.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/einstein-book-covers.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-388 size-large\" src=\"http:\/\/andrew-may.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/einstein-book-covers-1024x756.jpg\" alt=\"Einstein book covers\" width=\"525\" height=\"388\" srcset=\"https:\/\/andrew-may.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/einstein-book-covers-1024x756.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/andrew-may.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/einstein-book-covers-300x221.jpg 300w, https:\/\/andrew-may.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/einstein-book-covers-768x567.jpg 768w, https:\/\/andrew-may.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/einstein-book-covers.jpg 1881w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 525px) 100vw, 525px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I was going through some old audio cassettes I recorded from the radio when I was a student, and came across a really interesting little snippet. It\u2019s the physicist Paul Dirac reminiscing about Einstein on a BBC programme, though I\u2019m afraid I\u2019ve no idea which one. The note I made at the time says \u201crecorded &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/andrew-may.com\/blog\/2018\/02\/dirac-on-einstein\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Dirac on Einstein&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[52,51,54],"class_list":["post-386","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-einstein","tag-physics","tag-youtube"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/andrew-may.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/andrew-may.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/andrew-may.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andrew-may.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andrew-may.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=386"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/andrew-may.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":398,"href":"https:\/\/andrew-may.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386\/revisions\/398"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/andrew-may.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andrew-may.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andrew-may.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}