How Dirac’s Seminal Contributions Pave the Way for Comprehending Nature’s Deeper Designs Mani L. Bhaumik Department of Physics, University of California, Los Angeles. E-mail:
[email protected] Editors: Zvi Bern & Danko Georgiev Article history: Submitted on October 27, 2019; Accepted on December 6, 2019; Published on December 17, 2019. redible reasons are presented to reveal that was the totally unexpected existence of anti-particles, many of the lingering century old enigmas, sur- culminating in the eventual development of the quan- Crounding the behavior of at least an individual tum field theory of the Standard Model that reveals quantum particle, can be comprehended in terms of the deepest secrets of the universe known to date. an objectively real specific wave function. This wave Quanta 2019; 8: 88–100. function is gleaned from the single particle energy- momentum eigenstate offered by the theory of space filling universal quantum fields that is an inevitable 1 Introduction outcome of Dirac’s pioneering masterpiece. Exam- ples of these well-known enigmas are wave particle Just after getting his Ph.D. in 1926, the same year in duality, the de Broglie hypothesis, the uncertainty which physics started to advance at breakneck speed fol- principle, wave function collapse, and predictions of lowing the successful formulation of quantum physics measurement outcomes in terms of probability in- to resolve the perplexities of the atomic domain, Paul stead of certainty. Paul Dirac successfully incorpo- Dirac entered the field of research as a freshly minted rated special theory of relativity into quantum me- scientific prodigy. Within a mere couple of years, he chanics for the first time.