Spin or, Actually: Spin and Quantum Statistics ∗
Séminaire Poincaré, Jürg Martin Fröhlich
Abstract
“He who is deficient in the art of selection may, by showing nothing but the truth, produce all the effects of the grossest falsehoods. It perpetually happens that one writer tells less truth than another, merely because he tells more ‘truth’.” (T. Macauley, ‘History’, in Essays, Vol. 1, p 387, Sheldon, NY 1860) Dedicated to the memory of M. Fierz, R. Jost, L. Michel and V. Telegdi, teachers, colleagues, friends. 1 Introduction to ‘Spin ’ 1 It appears that the 21 st Century is witnessing a strong decline in Society’s (the public’s, the politicians’,...) interest in fundamental science, in particular in fundamental theoretical science based on precise mathematical reasoning. It is hard to imagine that a discovery like the deflection of light in the gravitational field of the sun, along with the underlying