From rational numbers to Dirac's bra and ket: symbolic representation of physical laws.

DOI10.1007/S00016-002-8364-6MaRDI QIDQ1613285zbMATH OpenOpenAlexFDO

Authors Salvo D'Agostino

Publication date 2002

Published in Physics in Perspective (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://doi.org/10.1007/s00016-002-8364-6

zbMATH Keywords

elementary-particle theoriesphysical conceptssymbols

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

History of mathematics in the 19th century (01A55) History of mathematics in the 20th century (01A60) History of quantum theory (81-03)

Review text

Since the 19th century, physicists have used symbols which interacted with their physical concepts. The author presents that line of the development, the key figures of which were Gauss, Weber, Maxwell, Schrödinger, Heisenberg, Dirac, and others. Stressing the role of Dirac, he argues that it was a transition from representing properties of a system to identification with the system itself. And he claims that ``today this new status of physical objects and of their symbols is accepted tacitly in the structure of elementary-particle theories.

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Cited in

(2)

• Ideograms for physics and chemistry
• Dirac's book \textit{The principles of quantum mechanics} as an alternative way of organizing a theory

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