2012 Reprint of 1955 Edition. Exact facsimile of the originaledition, not reproduced with Optical Recognition Software. Dirac iswidely regarded as one of the world's greatest physicists. He wasone of the founders of quantum mechanics and quantumelectrodynamics. His early contributions include the modernoperator calculus for quantum mechanics, which he calledtransformation theory, and an early version of the path integral.His relativistic wave equation for the electron was the firstsuccessful attack on the problem of relativistic quantum mechanics.Dirac founded quantum field theory with his reinterpretation of theDirac equation as a many-body equation, which predicted theexistence of antimatter and matter-antimatter annihilation. He wasthe first to formulate quantum electrodynamics, although he couldnot calculate arbitrary quantities because the short distance limitrequires renormalization. Dirac discovered the magnetic monopolesolutions, the first topological configuration in physics, and usedthem to give the modern explanation of charge quantization. Hedeveloped constrained quantization in the 1960s, identifying thegeneral quantum rules for arbitrary classical systems. Theselectures were given delivered and published during his tenure atPrinceton's Institute for Advanced Study in the 1930's.

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