Arrangement and Description of the Paul A.M. Dirac Collection

这个项目的目的是向科学史家提供佛罗里达州立大学收集的理论物理学家保罗·狄拉克（Paul A.M. Dirac，1902- 1984）的论文。为此，在六个月的赠款期结束时将实现两个目标：由一名档案管理员对所有项目进行整理，并采取适当的保存措施;以及创建一个基于网络的查找工具，在文件夹一级记录收藏品的内容。这大约20 000件物品的身体是由Margit Dirac夫人无特殊限制地捐赠给FSU的。在深度和广度上，任何其他与狄拉克相关的材料都无法与之相比，当安排完成时，它将占据至少87英尺的书架空间-其中只有27英尺是给狄拉克拥有的书籍。包括：狄拉克的草稿、终稿和已发表作品的证明;演讲的笔记和打字稿;笔记本;数学计算的成捆;与特定主题有关的各种文件组，如“战争工作”（原子弹研究）;他写的信件;以及来自杰出同事如玻尔、海森堡、薛定谔和塔姆的大量信件。值得注意的是狄拉克的边际评论别人的手稿和证明，以及在offprints他和别人的文章。补充收集的照片，会议程序，个人和专业纪念品，以及从19世纪80年代到20世纪80年代初的家庭文件的大量缓存。这个项目的重要性和潜在影响可以通过以下几点来衡量：第一，狄拉克作为本世纪“物理学革命”的主要贡献者之一，其重要性无可争议。第二，档案资源的问题是一个丰富的，不仅为学生的狄拉克的生活和思想，但研究人员专注于同时代的人，他互动的信件和人。这不仅是Robin Rider博士的证词，也是其他三位项目顾问的证词，他们也在1998年现场调查了这些材料：盖利森、大卫卡西迪和约翰欧布莱特。狄拉克的传记作者和科学史家肯定会从这些论文中找到有用的东西。文化历史学家衡量20世纪物理学家所宣扬的物理现实的新形象的长期后果，也将直接或间接地受益于这一伟大遗产的可用性，使其他地方无法获得的研究成果成为可能。

The purpose of this project is to make available to historians of science the Florida State University collection of the papers of theoretical physicist Paul A.M. Dirac (1902-84). To this end, two objectives will be reached by the close of the six-months grant period: the arrangement of all items by an archivist who will also take appropriate preservation measures; and the creation of a web-based finding aid documenting at the folder level the contents of the collection. This body of approximately 20,000 items was donated without special restrictions to FSU by Mrs. Margit Dirac. Unequaled in depth and breadth by any other assemblage of Dirac-related materials, it will, when the arrangement is completed, occupy at least 87 linear feet of shelf space -- only 27 of which are given to books owned by Dirac. Included are: Dirac's drafts, final manuscripts and proofs of published works; notes for and typescripts of lectures; notebooks; sheaves of mathematical calculations; groups of various kinds of documents related to particular subjects such as "War Work" (atomic bomb research); letters written by him; and a much more substantial corpus of incoming correspondence from distinguished colleagues such as Bohr, Heisenberg, Schrodinger, and Tamm. Noteworthy are Dirac's marginal comments on others' manuscripts and proofs, as well as in offprints of his and others' articles. Complementing the collection are photographs, conference programs, personal and professional memorabilia, and a large cache of family papers dating from the 1880s through the early 1980s. The significance and potential impact of the project may be gauged by, first, Dirac's undisputed importance as one of the major contributors to the "Physics Revolution" of this century. Second, the archival resource in question is a rich one not only for students of Dirac's life and thought but for researchers focusing on the contemporaries with whom he interacted in correspondence and in person. Such is the testimony of not only Dr. Robin Rider but of three other project consultants who also surveyed the materials on-site in 1998: Drs. Peter L. Galison, David Cassidy, and John Albright. It is a virtual certainty that Dirac biographers and historians of science will find grist for the mill in these papers. Cultural historians measuring the long-term consequences of the new images of physical reality promulgated by 20th-century physicists will also benefit, directly or indirectly, from the availability of this grand legacy making possible research findings unobtainable nowhere else.