Wolfgang Pauli Quotes & Sayings

Physics is very muddled again at the moment; it is much too hard for me anyway, and I wish I were a movie comedian or something like that and had never heard anything about physics! — Wolfgang Pauli

You know, what Einstein has just said isn't so stupid. — Wolfgang Pauli

What really matters for me is ... the more active role of the observer in quantum physics ... According to quantum physics the observer has indeed a new relation to the physical events around him in comparison with the classical observer, who is merely a spectator. — Wolfgang Pauli

That theory is worthless. It isn't even wrong! — Wolfgang Pauli

The natural scientist is concerned with a particular kind of phenomena ... he has to confine himself to that which is reproducible ... I do not claim that the reproducible by itself is more important than the unique. But I do claim that the unique exceeds the treatment by scientific method. Indeed it is the aim of this method to find and test natural laws ... — Wolfgang Pauli

It is always the older that emanates the new one. — Wolfgang Pauli

For quite a while I have set for myself the rule if a theoretician says 'universal' it just means pure nonsense. — Wolfgang Pauli

From the point of view of logic, my report on 'Exclusion principle and quantum mechanics' has no conclusion. I believe that it will only be possible to write the conclusion if a theory will be established which will determine the value of the fine structure constant and will thus explain the atomistic structure of electricity, which is such an essential quality of all atomic sources of electric fields actually occurring in nature. — Wolfgang Pauli

One shouldn't work on semiconductors, that is a filthy mess; who knows whether any semiconductors exist. — Wolfgang Pauli

It isn't right. It isn't even wrong. — Wolfgang Pauli

It would be most satisfactory if physics and psyche could be seen as complementary aspects of the same reality — Wolfgang Pauli

When one analyzes the pre-conscious step to concepts, one always finds ideas which consist of 'symbolic images.' The first step to thinking is a painted vision of these inner pictures whose origin cannot be reduced only and firstly to the sensual perception but which are produced by an 'instinct to imagining' and which are re-produced by different individuals independently, i.e. collectively ... But the archaic image is also the necessary predisposition and the source of a scientific attitude. To a total recognition belong also those images out of which have grown the rational concepts. — Wolfgang Pauli

Einstein has a feeling for the central order of things. He can detect it in the simplicity of natural laws. We may take it that he felt this simplicity very strongly and directly during his discovery of the theory of relativity. Admittedly, this is a far cry from the contents of religion. I don't believe Einstein is tied to any religious tradition, and I rather think the idea of a personal God is entirely foreign to him. — Wolfgang Pauli

A colleague who met me strolling rather aimlessly in the beautiful streets of Copenhagen said to me in a friendly manner, "You look very unhappy"; whereupon I answered fiercely, "How can one look happy when he is thinking about the anomalous Zeeman effect?". — Wolfgang Pauli

I refuse to believe that God is a weak left-hander. — Wolfgang Pauli

It seems significant that according to quantum physics the indestructibility of energy on one hand which expresses its timeless existence and the appearance of energy in space and time on the other hand correspond to two contradictory (complementary) aspects of reality. In fact, both are always present, but in individual cases the one or the other may be more pronounced. — Wolfgang Pauli

... it should be remembered that the atomicity of electric charge has already found its expression in the specific numerical value of the fine structure constant, a theoretical understanding of which is still missing today. — Wolfgang Pauli

There can never be two or more equivalent electrons in an atom, for which in a strong field the values of all the quantum numbers n, k1, k2 and m are the same. If an electron is present, for which these quantum numbers (in an external field) have definite values, then this state is 'occupied.' — Wolfgang Pauli

I do not mind if you think slowly, but I do object when you publish more quickly than you think. — Wolfgang Pauli

As I regard physics and psychology as complementary types of examination, I am certain that there is an equally valid way that must lead the psychologist 'from behind' (namely, through investigating the archetypes) into the world of physics. As an example of background physics, I shall discuss a motif that occurs regularly in my dreams - namely, fine structure, in particular doublet structure of spectral lines and the separation of a chemical element into two isotopes. — Wolfgang Pauli

I confess, that very different from you, I do find sometimes scientific inspiration in mysticism ... but this is counterbalanced by an immediate sense for mathematics. — Wolfgang Pauli

The fact that the author thinks slowly is not serious, but the fact that he publishes faster than he thinks is inexcusable. — Wolfgang Pauli

Later, however, I came to recognize the objective nature of these dreams or fantasies ... Thus it was that I gradually came to acknowledge that such fantasies or dreams are neither meaningless nor purely arbitrary but rather convey a sort of "second meaning" of the terms applied. — Wolfgang Pauli

Aristotle was by far a less able thinker than Plato ... he was completely overwhelmed by Plato. — Wolfgang Pauli

I don't mind that you think slowly but I do mind that you are publishing faster than you think. — Wolfgang Pauli

God made the bulk; the surface was invented by the devil. — Wolfgang Pauli

I have done a terrible thing, I have postulated a particle that cannot be detected. — Wolfgang Pauli

After reading a paper by a young theoretical scientist, Pauli, shaking his head sadly, commented:
That is not even wrong. — Wolfgang Pauli

How can one avoid despondency if one thinks of the anomalous Zeeman effect? — Wolfgang Pauli

This isn't right. This isn't even wrong. — Wolfgang Pauli

It is not only not right, it is not even wrong. — Wolfgang Pauli

Everything comes to him who knows how to wait. — Wolfgang Pauli

The fact of the existence of two theories [causal and acausal] that contradict each other in Jung ... corresponds psychologically to the vascillation between 3 and 4. — Wolfgang Pauli

Why did the chicken cross the road? there already was a chicken on this side of the road. — Wolfgang Pauli

Wolfgang Pauli, in the months before Heisenberg's paper on matrix mechanics pointed the way to a new quantum theory, wrote to a friend, "At the moment physics is again terribly confused. In any case, it is too difficult for me, and I wish I had been a movie comedian or something of the sort and had never heard of physics." That testimony is particularly impressive if contrasted with Pauli's words less than five months later: "Heisenberg's type of mechanics has again given me hope and joy in life. To be sure it does not supply the solution to the riddle, but I believe it is again possible to march forward. — Wolfgang Pauli

The best that most of us can hope to achieve in physics is simply to misunderstand at a deeper level. — Wolfgang Pauli

Modern man, seeking a middle position in the evaluation of sense impression and thought, can, following Plato , interpret the process of understanding nature as a correspondence, that is, a coming into congruence of pre-existing images of the human psyche with external objects and their behaviour. Modern man, of course, unlike Plato , looks on the pre-existent original images also as not invariable, but as relative to the development of a conscious point of view, so that the word "dialectic" which Plato is fond of using may be applied to the process of development of human knowledge. — Wolfgang Pauli

That's not right. That's not even wrong. — Wolfgang Pauli

This is to show the world that I can paint like Titian . [A big drawing of a rectangle] Only technical details are missing. — Wolfgang Pauli

Es gibt keinen Gott und Dirac ist sein Prophet. (There is no God and Dirac is his Prophet.)

{A remark made during the Fifth Solvay International Conference (October 1927), after a discussion of the religious views of various physicists, at which all the participants laughed, including Dirac, as quoted in Teil und das Ganze (1969), by Werner Heisenberg, p. 119; it is an ironic play on the Muslim statement of faith, the Shahada, often translated: 'There is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is his Prophet.'} — Wolfgang Pauli

The theoretical determination of the fine structure constant is certainly the most important of the unsolved problems of modern physics. — Wolfgang Pauli

The layman always means, when he says reality that he is speaking of something self-evidently known; whereas to me it seems the most important and exceedingly difficult task of our time is to work on the construction of a new idea of reality. — Wolfgang Pauli

If speculative ideas can not be tested, they're not science; they don't even rise to the level of being wrong. — Wolfgang Pauli

A synthesis embracing both rational understanding and the mystical experience of unity is the mythos, spoken or unspoken, or our present day and age. — Wolfgang Pauli

Although I have no objection to accepting the existence of relatively constant psychic contents that survive personal ego, it must always be born in mind that we have no way of knowing what these contents are actually like "as such." All we can observe is their effect on other living people, whose spiritual level and whose personal unconscious crucially influence the way these contents actually manifest themselves. — Wolfgang Pauli