See here for the voting procedure, and background.
P. A. M. Dirac, The quantum theory of the electron, Proc. R. Soc. London A 117 610-612 (1928); The quantum theory of the electron Part II Proc. R. Soc. London A 118 351-361 (1928).
These two papers we’ll count as one. Brought to you by the quiet but firm hand of Paul Dirac. Where would we be today without this level of understanding of the physics of the electron. There’d be no electronics, for example. Imagine our communications without that! Can this work push out the competition, upsetting the bookies?
Make one comment, which will be your vote. (Any other comments from you on this thread will be deleted.) Feel free to tell the world what this paper means to you…. and why you voted for it over the others….. Or you can just make a comment that registers your vote, making whatever noise you want!
Voting ends 9:00pm, Jan 16th Pacific Standard Time.
-cvj
January 9th, 2006 at 4:51 am
Meep, meep.
January 9th, 2006 at 8:47 am
This one has got my vote…
January 9th, 2006 at 9:10 am
This gets my vote. The most useful everyday application of modern physics can be traced back to quantum behavior of electron – solid state devices, materials science, chemistry…
January 9th, 2006 at 9:44 am
I am assuming this represents, at least symbolically, the beginning of quantum field theory, the framework underlying almost everything around us. Also, together with GR, the beginning of using beautiful geometry to describe the world.
January 9th, 2006 at 1:12 pm
+1 for both the writing style and the content
January 9th, 2006 at 1:28 pm
Knowing of Dirac’s contribution (history from a lot of resources), I find this equally important from another perspective.
So Yes, this is a good one although I have to ask, where is the paper itself to judge?
Layman status, would not allow collegiate access. So this would be a “second sounding” Bleet.
January 9th, 2006 at 2:24 pm
vote, vote, vote.
January 9th, 2006 at 8:00 pm
%&/(#”!=)
January 9th, 2006 at 10:51 pm
If I take this paper to be a stand-in for the development of quantum field theory, which (apologies to string theory, but you ain’t there yet) is the most complete description of reality we have today, then I can see no deeper or more beautiful result in all of physics.
January 9th, 2006 at 10:56 pm
Perhaps this will be a strong runner-up to Principia…
January 10th, 2006 at 12:47 am
Dirac is my physics hero. He calmly exposited what he needed to show. He didn’t overreach in his statements, and didn’t go around creditmongering. He simply did wonderful physics where he let an eye for truth and beuty coexist with the necessity of agreeing with experiment.
January 10th, 2006 at 7:11 am
Here’s my vote: assuming that this is the “Dirac equation” paper, then this is the beginning of the first great unification of modern physics, reconciliing special relativity and quantum theory — a task that is (due to the need for UV cutoffs in quantum field theory) arguably still not complete.
January 10th, 2006 at 8:58 pm
A noise (quite a lot of noise, in fact).
January 16th, 2006 at 1:41 pm
yes.
January 16th, 2006 at 1:47 pm
this gets my vote (if I can still vote)
January 16th, 2006 at 2:51 pm
A vote.
January 16th, 2006 at 5:11 pm
yet another vote
January 16th, 2006 at 9:22 pm
Other work may be more significant, such as Einstein’s GR, but GR wasn’t represented compactly as a single paper the way this was.
January 17th, 2006 at 12:13 am
[...] 18 votes: P. A. M. Dirac, The quantum theory of the electron, Proc. R. Soc. London A 117 610-612 (1928); The quantum theory of the electron Part II Proc. R. Soc. London A 118 351-361 (1928). (These two papers counted as one.) Link here for the votes. [...]
March 30th, 2007 at 7:45 am
[...] The five papers are by Newton, Noether, Einstein, EPR, and Dirac. You just make a comment on the thread of the post that you get to by clicking a name, and that’s your vote. You have one vote. In voting, you may, if you wish, tell us about why you made that choice. [...]