Physicist — Wolfgang Pauli (Vienna 1900 – Zurich 1958) was an Austrian theoretical physicist, one of the sharpest and most critical minds in quantum physics. A child prodigy, while still very young he wrote a celebrated monograph on relativity that astonished even Einstein himself. In 1925 he formulated the exclusion principle, according to which two electrons cannot occupy the same quantum state, a key to understanding the structure of atoms and the periodic table. In 1930 he postulated the existence of the neutrino to save the conservation of energy in beta decay, a particle confirmed experimentally only a quarter of a century later. He received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1945 for the exclusion principle.
Trivia
The so-called ‘Pauli effect’ was proverbial, whereby experimental apparatus seemed to break down as soon as he entered the laboratory; also famous is his dismissal of a confused theory with the phrase ‘it is not even wrong’.
Theories and contributions
- Pauli exclusion principle — Two fermions cannot occupy the same quantum state; it explains the electronic structure of atoms.
- Neutrino hypothesis — He postulated a neutral, light particle to conserve energy and momentum in beta decay.
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Linked atoms
1 linked atom.