Talk:Wolfgang Pauli

God "joke"
I find story about Pauli and god totally inadequate. It has nothing to do in this place. 84.47.65.174 19:12, 30 May 2005 (UTC) It seems there are people here dedicated to introduce abrahamic religions in all texts, so Dirac's article has MORE space dedicated to his opinions on God than his quantum equation, LOL, zeitgeist — Preceding unsigned comment added by User Talk:47.58.99.60 • 09:33, 7 August 2018 (UTC)
 * I agree, and deleted it. Brighterorange 17:09, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * Well, Themanwithoutapast reverted it, so I won't re-revert out of politeness, but I still think this story absolutely does not belong in the article. It doesn't appear to be "well known" in any sense (can't find any hits for it on Google, and certainly my physics friends know nothing of it), has nothing to do with his "personality" (especially since he left the Catholic church) or "reputation" (as it is clearly fictional, or at best, mythological). The numerology is a very sure indicator of its kookiness. Someone please remove it, or at least argue for its relevance. Brighterorange 15:08, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * FWIW, the Pauli joke is fairly well-known in the physics community. The story ties in with Pauli's reputation for panning poorly thought-out physical theories (his equally famous phrase, "not even wrong", is in the same vein.) As for numerology, Pauli (along almost every other good physicist) really was fascinated by why &alpha; is so nearly 1/137. -- CYD
 * I think I understand the problem. I'm now able to find several references for the "joke", but the joke ends with Pauli shaking his head and telling God that he is wrong. The bit that follows and that explains 137 in terms of numerological babble (ridiculous--why should God work in base 10? why not 173? why not 1/137 exactly? Why not any other small numbers that can easily be found featuring important roles in the bible?) was apparently added afterwards. Without this new "punchline", the joke sort of makes sense (though I still don't think jokes really belong in an encyclopedia article) and is not offensive to me. Therefore, I removed the numerology and left the joke. (But would still support removing the whole thing). Brighterorange 18:50, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * ...and I am fascinated why pi is 3,141.. and I have been born on 3rd of January 1941 (oh, god must have done so!!)...not funny at all. I agree that the incriminated story has nothing to do in this article. Matyas 18:19, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * Deleted the joke. This is an encyclopedia, not a joke book. Shinigami27 (talk) 17:42, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

This incident is detailed in many sources, and often is used to illustrate Pauli's personality and approach, and the manner in which his colleagues regarded him. I am not sure why someone deemed it "unnecessary", but future attempts to strip this modest article of this well-known account should be preceded by some discussion. 137.111.13.200 (talk) 01:26, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

Popular Culture
With admirable consistency, the reference to popular culture in this Wikipedia article has a degrading effect. Every Wikipedia article that I have seen that contains such a reference is deleterious. Much popular culture is created by people who have only monetary profit as a goal. Many of them have limited knowledge, probably as a result of spending their time watching television and movies instead of reading. I would like to delete the section on popular culture.Lestrade 18:07, 15 February 2006 (UTC)Lestrade

Categories
It is alleged that nobody but the Nazis called Pauli Jewish. However, see the following:

--20.138.246.89 10:00, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
 * List of Jewish Nobel prize winners
 * "Pauli described himself as being three-quarters Jewish"
 * List of Famous Jewish Catholics, i.e. "people that are both Catholic and Jewish".

It is something that should be discussed. Assuming Pauli himself was made up of equal share of his grandparents he's then ethnically 75 percent Jewish, i.e. his paternal grandmother and grandfather is both Jewish, and on his mothers side he has one Jewish grandparent. But at the same time both his mother and his father was religiously Christian. It's a tough call since "Jew" can mean someone being Jewish in both a religious as well as ethnic sense.

90.224.18.89 (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 09:26, 5 April 2015 (UTC)

Nobody but the Nazis and monomaniacs who try to herd everybody noteworthy and not blameful into a list, that is. Bellbird 13:50, 12 September 2006 (UTC)


 * You are in violation of WP:NPA.--20.138.246.89 15:17, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

dates
just concerning this part

"At the beginning of 1931, shortly after his divorce and immediately following his postulation of the neutrino, Pauli had a severe breakdown. "

see: http://books.google.com.au/books?id=fkjSagZVzhwC&pg=PA24&lpg=PA24&dq=pauli+divorce&source=bl&ots=G-VKxreVrH&sig=v4ce9LtF2FgrDRA4PjMZba0Qx5E&hl=en&ei=-nw3SrvmM86JkQXhnMSMDQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2#PPA24,M1 and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutrino#Proposal_of_neutrino_existence.2C_from_conservation_arguments

Ill change it, but I dont know how to cite the source: Lindorff, D. (2004). "Pauli and Jung: the meeting of two great minds". ISBN 0835608379. Retrieved on 2009-6-16 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 60.241.117.205 (talk) 11:25, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Cause of death
Should we categorize his death as caused by pancreatic cancer? __meco (talk) 17:46, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

OK, done. Dirac66 (talk) 19:37, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

Pauli & Jung
A major part of Pauli's life involved his treatment and later work with Swiss Psychologist Carl Jung. The 'subject' in Jung's PSYCHOLOGY AND ALCHEMY is Wolfgang Pauli. Both men were interested in how the psyche effected material processes, Jung in terms of synchronicity and Pauli in terms of the Quantum Process. Some of Pauli's scientific researches arose out of their dialogue. Should this also be mentioned? It seems a shame to miss it, even if people are embarrassed by the idea of a 'hard-headed Scientist' spending time with an analyst. The page does, after all, mention Jung as one of his friends. ThePeg (talk) 16:23, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Timeline error
"Pauli may have been unconcerned that much of his work thus went uncredited, but when it came to Heisenberg's world-renowned, 1958, Lecture at Göttingen on their joint work on a unified field theory, and the press release calling Pauli a mere "assistant to Professor Heisenberg", Pauli became offended, shooting back several times over the years at CERN and elsewhere by denouncing Heisenberg's physics prowess."

How could he have shot back "several times over the years" after the 1958 lecture, when he died in December 1958? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jorgeditor (talk • contribs) 09:38, 3 February 2014 (UTC)


 * I have now removed the words over the years after listening to (Part 6 of) the source YouTube video, which does not contain these words or anything similar. Perhaps the editor who inserted this meant over the remaining year of his life. Dirac66 (talk) 02:10, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

Removed questionable statement
I removed this. Google finds the cited book (ISBN 354056859X), but not the word "twat" in it. I don't have access to the full text, so I can't verify the statement. However, the user who introduced it is called Ihatedirac2k13, see also their contributions, and the similar editing pattern of Ihatedirac. This stretches the limits of AGF a bit too much. &mdash;&thinsp; H HHIPPO  22:02, 7 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Fully agree. --Chris Howard (talk) 20:29, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

The same statement was inserted again today by numbered editor 130.88.75.200, still without a page number. So I am going to remove it again for now and make two requests in case someone wants to insert it again: 1) Please add the page number of the alleged quote. It is not reasonable to expect others to scan an entire book to find one quote. 2) If this is a translation of something Pauli wrote or said in German, please give the original German word. Perhaps it has a less offensive alternate translation which would be more appropriate. Dirac66 (talk) 02:24, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Another numbered editor tried this again today. Since the last time I have checked my library and found the book which is the alleged source of this quote. The index contains 10 references to Dirac and I have now looked at these pages. As I expected, there is no such quote or indeed any inappropriate remark by Pauli. Dirac66 (talk) 18:57, 8 April 2013 (UTC)


 * And it appeared today from editor 130.88.114.60. Reverted and issued a introducing deliberate factual error warning, level 1. -- Racer X11 Talk to me Stalk me  17:47, 26 May 2014 (UTC)

Blocked from editting
Why is this page blocked from being editted? xox — Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.88.75.200 (talk) 18:25, 16 April 2013 (UTC)
 * See the article edit history for 13 April. Vsmith (talk) 22:02, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

Room 137
Can we get another citation for the story about Pauli dying in Room 137? I remember reading a different version of this (I can't remember what book), in that he was actually in Room 136, and requested to be moved to Room 137 before dying. One of the versions might be apocryphal, like Newton and his apple. Nicole Sharp (talk) 07:10, 23 August 2016 (UTC)

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Arrogant? WAT?
The paragraph about his conversation with Paul Ehrenfest hardly betrays arrogance. Ehrenfest lightly insults Pauli's character, and Pauli immediately reverses to insult Ehrenfest's work. This is witticism. If it were arrogance, one would hardly expect that the result would be that they become very good friends. NathanZook (talk) 20:14, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

ETH
"In 1940, he tried in vain to obtain Swiss citizenship, which would have allowed him to remain at the ETH." I assume this refers to ETH Zurich, but there is no preceding mention of him arriving there in the first place.Newburyjohn (talk) 07:19, 19 June 2021 (UTC)


 * Thanks for noticing this. After checking the revision history, I traced the problem to an edit on 10 March 2021 which re-organized the Early Years section and deleted the ETH appointment and a few other facts for no apparent reason. I will restore the facts for which I can find sources. Dirac66 (talk) 20:30, 29 June 2021 (UTC)

Overall
Can't help feeling that Pauli was an underachiever. Burraron (talk) 14:10, 10 July 2023 (UTC)