Wolfgang Pauli

Wolfgang Pauli und die moderne Physik
Ausstellung der ETH-Bibliothek aus Anlass des 100. Geburtstags von Wolfgang Pauli.
http://www.ethbib.ethz.ch/exhibit/pauli/pauli.html

Wolfgang Pauli -The Nobel Prize in Physics 1945
Pauli (1900-1958) was outstanding among the brilliant mid-twentieth century school of physicists. He was recognized as one of the leaders when, barely out of his teens and still a student, he published a masterly exposition of the theory of relativity. His exclusion principle, which is often quoted bearing his name, crystallized the existing knowledge of atomic structure at the time it was postulated and it led to the recognition of the two-valued variable required to characterize the state of an electron. Pauli was the first to recognize the existence of the neutrino, an uncharged and massless particle which carries off energy in radioactive ß-disintegration; this came at the beginning of a great decade, prior to World War I I, for his centre of research in theoretical physics at Zurich.
http://www.nobel.se/laureates/physics-1945.html

Wolfgang Pauli
Wolfgang Pauli wurde am 25.April 1900 in Wien geboren und starb am 15.Dezember 1958 in Zürich. Pauli gehörte zu den großen Physikern des 20.Jahrhunderts. An den wichtigen Entwicklungen zu seinen Lebzeiten, der Quantenmechanik, der Kernphysik, der modernen Feldtheorie und der Teilchenphysik, hatte er wesentlichen Anteil. Hinter seiner Sachlichkeit verbarg sich allerdings auch ein tiefes Interesse an philosophischen und letzlich menschlichen Problemen, über die er z.T. ausgedehnte Diskussionen mit dem Psychologen Carl Gustav Jung führte.
http://www.chemie.uni-bremen.de/stohrer/biograph/pauli.htm

Wolfgang Pauli (1900-1958)
Über Paulis Kindheit und Jugend weiß man sehr wenig. Pauli selbst ist in seinen Briefen nur selten auf seine Entwicklungsjahre eingegangen. Sein Vater Wolfgang Josef Pauli beendete sein Medizinstudium 1892 in Prag und übersiedelte 1898 nach Wien. Dort heiratete er 1899 Berta Schütz. Nach der 4.Volkschulklasse kam Wolfgang Pauli in das k.k. Gymnasium in Döbling.
Im Gegensatz zu seinem Klassenkameraden Richard Kuhn war Pauli keineswegs ein Musterschüler. Seine anfangs sehr guten Zensuren waren gegen Ende seiner Schullaufbahn nur genügend. Am 2.Juli 1918 maturierte er "mit Auszeichnung". Doch von entscheidenderer Bedeutung für Paulis wissenschaftliche Entfaltung dürften die Anregungen seines Vaters gewesen sein. Aber auch seine Begabung bei den Fächern Mathematik und Physik blieb nicht unentdeckt.
http://www.cso.net/bg19/beta/pauli.htm

Wolfgang Pauli: short biography & some quotes
Pauli was born in Vienna, April 25th, 1900. His father was a physician of jewish descent, who became professor at university in Vienna. Pauli was baptized in the Catholic church. His godfather was the physicist Ernst Mach. According to a letter of Pauli, his godfather was much stronger a personality as the priest, with the result that his baptism had not a catholic, but rather an antimetaphysical character.
When he was 21, he finished an excellent summary of Einstein's relativity theories for the 'Encyklopaedie der mathematischen Wissenschaften'. In 1924 Pauli formulated the exclusion principle, his first major discovery in atomic physics. Pauli played an important role in the development of quantum mechanics, that occurred from 1924 to 1927. In 1932, Pauli proposed the existence of the 'neutrino', to explain beta-decay in Radium. At the end of his life (1956), this particle was detected experimentally.
After the psychoanalytical treatment, Pauli remained in contact with Jung . In 1952, they coauthored a book 'Naturerklaerung und Psyche', that contains Pauli's study on Kepler and the influence of archetypes on Kepler's theories.
He died in December 15th, 1958.
I consider Pauli as one of the most important thinkers of our time. As a matter of fact, he had developed to a certain degree the art of perceiving the depths of reality in an immediate, imaginative way. For instance, his Easter dream about the four eggs, is an imaginative representation of the four causes, the same concept that had been captured in an abstract way by Aristotle. This is an example of Pauli's concept of 'archetype': the archetype permits us to understand reality; but at the same time, the archetype also operates in the depths of substance. Pauli situated the archetypes in a 'Zwischenreich', the realm of the soul , that mediates between the realm of matter and the realm of spirit. Of course, most scientists will tend to denigrate these opinions and guesses of Pauli, but I believe that in his 'dark' writings and letters importants germs are hidden for future scientific development.

"Das Ziel der Wissenschaft und des Lebens wird (...)letzten Endes der Mensch bleiben" (Letter to Jung, 27-2-1953)

"Wir duerfen nicht die Atome in die Fesseln unserer Vorurteile schlagen wollen (zu denen nach meiner Meinung auch die Annahme der Existenz von Elektronenbahnen im Sinne der gewöhnlichen Kinematik gehoert), sondern wir muessen umgekehrt unsere Begriffe der Erfahrung anpassen" (Letter to Bohr, December 12, 1924)

http://www.ping.be/jvwit/WPaulishortbioquotes.html