Quotes from Wolfgang Pauli

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

This isn't right. This isn't even wrong.

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

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

Our friend Dirac has a creed; and the main tenet of that creed is: There is no God, and Dirac is his prophet.

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

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

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

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.

As ordering operators and image formers in this world of symbolic images, the archetypes thus function as the sought-for bridge between the sense perceptions and the ideas and are, accordingly, a necessary presupposition even for evolving a scientific theory of nature. However, one must guard against transferring this a priori of knowledge into the conscious mind and relating it to definite ideas capable of rational formulation.

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.

Das ist nicht nur nicht richtig; es ist nicht einmal falsch

The theoretical determination of the fine structure constant is certainly the most important of the unsolved problems of modern physics. We believe that any regression to the ideas of classical physics (as, for instance, to the use of the classical field concept)cannot bring us nearer to this goal. To reach it, we shall, presumably, have to pay with further revolutionary changes of the fundamental concepts of physics with a still farther digression from the concepts of the classical theories.

what is the nature of the bridge between the sense perceptions and the concepts?

Einstein's life ended.....with a demand on us for synthesis.

When I die, my first question to the devil will be: What is the meaning of the fine structure constant

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

One should no more rack one's brain about the problem of whether something one cannot know anything about exists all the same, than about the ancient problem of how many angels are able to sit on the point of a needle.

To us the only acceptable point of view appears to be one that recognizes both sides of reality — the quantitative and the qualitative, the physical and the psychical — as compatible with each other, and can embrace them simultaneously. It would be most satisfactory if physics and psyche (i.e., matter and mind) could be viewed as complementary aspects of the same reality.