From that insight, Dirac built an entirely new formulation of the theory using what he called “q-numbers” (quantum numbers)—abstract quantities that don’t commute. He independently rediscovered aspects of Hilbert’s operator theory, though he preferred his own algebraic route because he found mathematicians’ obsession with convergence and existence theorems unappealing.

Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac (, dih-RAK ; ^{[ 3 ]} 8 August 1902 – 20 October 1984) was a British theoretical physicist who is considered to be one of the founders of quantum mechanics. ^{[ 4 ] [ 5 ]} Dirac laid the foundations for both quantum electrodynamics and quantum field theory, coining the former term. ^{[ 6 ] [ 7 ] [ 8 ] [ 9 ]} He was Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge from 1932 to 1969, and a professor of physics at Florida State University from 1970 to 1984. Dirac shared the 1933 Nobel Prize in Physics with Erwin Schrödinger “for the discovery of new productive forms of atomic theory.” ^{[ 10 ]}

Dirac graduated from the University of Bristol with a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering in 1921, and a Bachelor of Arts in Mathematics in 1923. ^{[ 11 ]} Dirac then graduated from St John’s College, Cambridge, with a Doctor of Philosophy in Physics in 1926, writing the first ever thesis on quantum mechanics. ^{[ 12 ]}

He formulated the Dirac equation, one of the most important results in physics, in 1928. ^{[ 7 ]} It connected special relativity and quantum mechanics and predicted the existence of antimatter. ^{[ 13 ]} He wrote a famous paper in 1931, ^{[ 14 ]} which further predicted the existence of antimatter. ^{[ 15 ] [ 16 ] [ 13 ]} Dirac also contributed greatly to the reconciliation of general relativity with quantum mechanics. He contributed to Fermi–Dirac statistics, which describes the behaviour of fermions, particles with half-integer spin. His 1930 monograph, The Principles of Quantum Mechanics, is one of the most influential texts on the subject. ^{[ 17 ]} He and Schrödinger tied for eighth in a Physics World poll of the greatest physicists of all time. ^{[ 18 ]} .