Wolfgang Pauli

Physicist, Nobel prize winner (1900-1958) · United States · Scientists · Died at 58

Wolfgang Pauli is read about 766 times a day, in 93 languages.

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A theoretical physicist who told the universe it couldn't put two electrons in the same quantum state - and turned out to be right. The exclusion principle bearing his name underpins why matter has structure at all, why atoms don't collapse, why you're solid instead of a smear of particles.

Scientists Academic Chemistry Physics United States Americas 20th Century

A life in dates

1958Died15 December 1958“The best that most of us can hope to achieve in physics is simply to misunderstand at a deeper level.”In their wordsMay 1958to Jagdish Mehra, in Berkeley, California (May 1958), as quoted in The Historical Development of Quantum Theory (2000) by Jagdish MehraRead the whole statement

Honorary Doctor of the University of HamburgAwardMax Planck MedalAward1956“The designation "Jungian Psychology" is actually already unscientific sectarianism. I only acknowledge C. G. Jung's contribution to the general psychology of the unconscious.”In their wordsLetter To Carl Alfred Meier (the president of the C. G. Jung Institute, Zurich) in (1956)Read the whole statement

Matteucci MedalAward1953Foreign Member of the Royal SocietyAward1952Franklin MedalAward1951“It is always the older that emanates the new one.”In their words13 October 1951Letter to Markus Fierz (13 October 1951)Read the whole statement

1950“Both of us [seem] to agree that the future of Jung's ideas is not with [psycho-] therapy... but with a unitarian, holistic concept of nature and the position of man in it.”In their words25 December 1950Letter to Markus Fierz regarding Carl Jung's ideas (25 December 1950)Read the whole statement

1948“The purely psychological interpretation only apprehends half of the matter.”In their words16 June 1948Letter to Carl Jung, (16 June 1948)Read the whole statement

1945Nobel Prize in PhysicsAward1931Lorentz MedalAward1927“At the dawn of religion, all the knowledge of a particular community fitted into a spiritual framework, based largely on religious values and ideas.”In their wordsStatements after the Solvay Conference of 1927, as quoted in Physics and Beyond (1971) by Werner HeisenbergRead the whole statement

1926ProfessorAward1900Born25 April 1900

Also in Deutsch

Photos 5

Wolfgang Pauli lecturing (1929)

Wolfgang Pauli 1953

Wolfgang Pauli, c. 1924

In their own words 10

Wolfgang Pauli

10 statements, newest first

This is to show the world that I can paint like Titian. [A big drawing of a rectangle] Only technical details are missing.
1958, In a letter to George Gamow, 1958, commenting on Werner Heisenberg's claim to a journalist that Pauli and Heisenberg have found a unified, Own words
The best that most of us can hope to achieve in physics is simply to misunderstand at a deeper level.
May 1958, to Jagdish Mehra, in Berkeley, California (May 1958), as quoted in The Historical Development of Quantum Theory (2000) by Jagdish Mehra, Own words
The designation "Jungian Psychology" is actually already unscientific sectarianism. I only acknowledge C. G. Jung's contribution to the general psychology of the unconscious.
1956, Letter To Carl Alfred Meier (the president of the C. G. Jung Institute, Zurich) in (1956), Own words

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Awards

Max Planck Medal1958

Honorary Doctor of the University of Hamburg1958

Matteucci Medal1956

Foreign Member of the Royal Society1953

Franklin Medal1952

Nobel Prize in Physics1945

Lorentz Medal1931

Professor1926

Honorary Doctor of the University of Vienna

Family

Parents

Wolfgang Pauli

Partners

Sibling Hertha Pauli

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About this person

Wolfgang Ernst Pauli was born 25 April 1900, an Austrian who would become Swiss and help invent quantum mechanics from the inside. In 1945, nominated by Einstein, he won the Nobel Prize in Physics for discovering the exclusion principle - the rule, grounded in spin theory, that explains the architecture of matter itself. Five years after that triumph, he'd already made another leap: in 1930, troubled by energy going missing in beta decay, he proposed a tiny neutral particle to balance the books. Fermi named it the neutrino. It took until 1956, two years before Pauli's death on 15 December 1958, for anyone to actually catch one.

Country

United States

In common with Wolfgang

Max PlanckBoth received Lorentz Medal

Guglielmo MarconiBoth received Matteucci Medal

Paul DiracBoth received Max Planck Medal

William Thomson, 1st Baron KelvinBoth received Matteucci Medal

Lev LandauBoth received Max Planck Medal

Arnold SommerfeldBoth received Lorentz Medal

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