Wolfgang Ernst Friedrich Pauli, a prominent scientist of modern physics, was born 120 years ago. Relates to his name among others the introduction of Pauli matrices and the proof of the theory of Spin Statistics Theorem. In 1925 created the most important theory, the Pauli exclusion principle, that two electrons cannot occupy the same quantum state. Recognition of his pioneer work won Nobel prize in 1945. Kivonat 120 éve született Wolfgang Ernst Friedrich Pauli, a modern fizika kiemelkedő személyisége. Nevéhez fűződik többek között a Pauli-mátrixok bevezetése és a spin-statisztika elméletének bizonyítása. 1925-ben alkotta meg legfontosabb elméletét, a Pauli-féle kizárási elvet, melynek legfontosabb tézise, hogy két elektron nem lehet ugyanabban a kvantumállapotban. E munkájáért 1945-ben fizikai Nobel-díjat kapott.
Wolfgang Ernst Friedrich Pauli, a prominent scientist of modern physics, was born 120 years ago. Relates to his name among others the introduction of Pauli matrices and the proof of the theory of Spin Statistics Theorem. In 1925 created the most important theory, the Pauli exclusion principle, that two electrons cannot occupy the same quantum state. Recognition of his pioneer work won Nobel prize in 1945. Kivonat 120 éve született Wolfgang Ernst Friedrich Pauli, a modern fizika kiemelkedő személyisége. Nevéhez fűződik többek között a Pauli-mátrixok bevezetése és a spin-statisztika elméletének bizonyítása. 1925-ben alkotta meg legfontosabb elméletét, a Pauli-féle kizárási elvet, melynek legfontosabb tézise, hogy két elektron nem lehet ugyanabban a kvantumállapotban. E munkájáért 1945-ben fizikai Nobel-díjat kapott.
Abstract The exclusion principle is one of the most far-reaching theorems in physics. In a telegram to the Nobel committee, quoted in [1], Einstein wrote: ‘Nominate Wolfgang Pauli for physics prize stop his contributions to modern quantum theory consisting of so-called Pauli or exclusion principle became fundamental part of modern physics being independent from other basic axioms of that theory stop Albert Einstein.’ It is interesting to note that quantum mechanics, the theory Einstein alluded to, was formulated a little after the Pauli principle.
Shortly after their introduction, the electron's Zweideutigkeit and Pauli's Ausschliessungsregel were embedded into a growing theoretical framework: from Fermi–Dirac statistics in 1926 (Section 4.2), to the non-relativistic quantum mechanics of the magnetic electron with Pauli's spin matrices in 1927 (Section 4.3); from Wigner and von Neumann's group theoretical derivation of the spin matrices in 1927 (Section 4.4), to Jordan's reinterpretation of Pauli's exclusion principle in terms of anticommutation relations for particle creation and annihilation operators in 1928 (Section 4.5), which paved the way for quantum field theory. The most important step in building up this theoretical framework was the transition from non-relativistic to relativistic quantum mechanics, with Dirac's equation for the electron in 1928 (Section 4.6), which finally allowed the derivation of the electron's spin with its anomalous magnetic moment and hence clarified in a conclusive way the origin of spectroscopic anomalies. The negative energy solutions of the Dirac equation, and Dirac's attempt to accommodate them via the hole theory in 1930, anticipated the experimental discovery of the antiparticle of the electron, the positron. Sections 4.7-4.9 reconstruct Pauli's sustained criticism of Dirac's hole theory. The history of this debate is intertwined with Pauli's search for a spin–statistics connection, which finally culminated in the spin–statistics theorem in 1940. With this theorem, the nomological shift from the status of a phenomenological rule to that of a fundamental scientific principle is finally completed. Introduction The year 1925 was the annus mirabilis for quantum mechanics.
The history of the exclusion principle is already an old one, but its conclusion has not yet been written. It is now eighty years since Wolfgang Pauli introduced an ‘extremely natural’ prescriptive rule, while dealing with some spectroscopic anomalies that beset physicists in the heyday of the old quantum theory. The rule excluded the possibility that any two bound electrons in an atom were in the same dynamic state, identified by a set of four quantum numbers. Hence the name of Ausschlieβungsregel (exclusion rule), or Pauli's Verbot (Pauli's veto) as Werner Heisenberg nicknamed it. The far-reaching physical significance of this rule became clear only later. From spectroscopy to atomic physics, from quantum field theory to high-energy physics, there is hardly another scientific principle that has more far-reaching implications than Pauli's exclusion principle. It is thanks to Pauli's principle that one obtains the electronic configurations underlying the classification of chemical elements in Mendeleev's periodic table as well as atomic spectra. To this same principle we credit the statistical behaviour of any half-integral spin particles (protons, neutrons, among many others) and the stability of matter. Shifting to high-energy physics, it is the exclusion principle that fixes the crucial constraint for binding quarks in hadrons, which together with leptons compose our physical world. This book advances a philosophical analysis of the enduring and far-reaching validity of Pauli's principle. It does not aim to address what a scientific principle is.
Atomic spectra had twice as many lines as predicted. As a solution, two young physicists, George Uhlenbeck and Samuel Goudsmit, proposed that in addition to orbiting its nucleus, an electron “spins” around its axis. (Not really, but the idea works.) Wolfgang Pauli showed that the spin could only have two opposing orientations. This could account for all of the lines. He further proposed an “Exclusion Principle”: that no electrons could be described by all the same quantum numbers, otherwise atoms (and we) could not exist. In 1930, he predicted the existence of a new particle, the neutrino, which was not observed until 26 years later. In addition to contributions to quantum mechanics, Pauli was famous for nasty remarks. A couple of gems:“This paper is so bad it is not even wrong.”“I don't mind your thinking slowly; I mind your publishing faster than you think.”
Abstract. Nobel Laureate in physics Wolfgang Pauli studied philosophy and the history of ideas intensively, especially in his later years, to form an accurate ontology vis‐à‐vis quantum theory. Pauli's close contacts with the Swiss psychiatrist C.G. Jung gave him special qualifications for also understanding the basic problems of empirical knowledge. After Pauli's sudden death in 1958, this work was maintained mainly in his posthumously published correspondence, which so far extends only to 1939. Because Pauli's view differs essentially from the direction physics research took after the deaths of the founding fathers of quantum theory, this article attempts to describe the main features in Pauli's revolutionary thought, which is based on nature's “epistemological lesson” as revealed by Pauli's atomic research. Pauli's conclusions have important implications for various issues in Western culture, not least with the limits of science and the relation of science to religion.
One of the reasons for 1945 Nobel Prize for physics is “for the discovery of the Exclusion Principle, also called the Pauli principle”. It has been found that bosons are not subject to the Pauli exclusion principle. This paper argues that in some cases the exclusion principle is also invalid for fermions. The reasons are as follows: first, according to Neutrosophy, any proposition has three situations of truth, falsehood and indeterminacy respectively; second, some scholars have pointed out that the exclusion principle may be broken in high-energy state; third, due to the existance of man created law (man-made law), the broken exclusion principle and the man-made (instantaneous) magnetic monopole can be artificially created; fourth, the exclusion principle is not compatible with law of conservation of energy, and in physics the principles that are not compatible with law of conservation of energy will be invalid in some cases.