Title :
As Singular as a Delta Function? [Microwave Surfing]
Author_Institution :
University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT, USA.
Abstract :
I am sure that many readers of Lucky\´s column share his trepidations (as I do) when it comes to making sense of quantum electrodynamics. Even P.A.M. Dirac (1902-1984), who shared the Nobel Prize for physics with Schrödinger in 1933, might have commiserated. Dirac (who received his first undergraduate degree in electrical engineering) felt that the quantum world could not be described in words or represented as images. To draw its picture would be "like a blind man sensing a snowflake. One touch and it\´s gone" [2]. He remarked on this challenge even in his Nobel Banquet Speech [3] of December 10, 1933: "But the physicist is at a disadvantage in this respect on account of the very specialized nature of his work, which cannot be made intelligible without an intensive preliminary course of study."
Keywords :
Books; Economic forecasting; Educational institutions; Electrical engineering; Electrodynamics; Mathematics; Physics; Positrons; Predictive models; Speech;
Journal_Title :
Microwave Magazine, IEEE
DOI :
10.1109/MMM.2009.935207