DIRAC ON LARGE NUMBERS...

Rare audio clip of Nobel Laureate Paul Dirac talking about the so-called 'large number hypothesis', regarding the uncanny similar relations between the various fundamental constants of nature, like Planck's constant, the speed of light, the constant of gravitation and so on. It is delightful and really surprising to find Dirac, one of the greatest physicists of the century (he unified quantum theory with the special theory of relativity, and discovered the fundamental equation for the electron, something that physicists would kill for doing), actually talking continuously for about 8 minutes. Dirac was a man who was almost painfully reserved. Someone remarked that he spoke "once in a light year", another physicist remarked that he talks less in a year than what most of us talk in a day. Almost every famous physicist seems to have his favourite Dirac anecdote, an illustration of his very taciturn nature, and almost extreme attitude of taking every sentence literally. When someone remarked that it was very cold outside, Dirac would actually open the window and verify this fact; this fact was not an instance of studied whimsicality, but innate nature. Once there was a galaxy of physicists engaged in heated conversation over dinner about a subject that Dirac was assuredly interested in. Throughout the dinner, Dirac kept quiet. At the end, someone asked him if he had any opinions about the matter just discussed. Dirac simply said, "It seems that there are always more people interested in talking than in listening". Period. Profound truth enunciated in one statement. I could go on...It was very, very hard to get Paul Dirac to talk...
Dirac himself attributed the source of this extreme reluctance to converse, to a painfully amusing event in his upbringing (which was admittedly not a very happy one). He claims that when he was a child, his father, with a view to instructing him in the French language, asked him to either speak in French or not speak. His father may have simply meant it half-jokingly, but Dirac chose not to speak at all. Vintage Dirac decision. Simple as that...
The associated site also has some revealing audio clips of conversations with David Bohm, John Wheeler, and most importantly, Werner Heisenberg, all key figures in the development of modern physics.

P.S.: John D. Barrow's 'The constants of nature' is an engrossing related read.