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

Wolfgang Pauli

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Wolfgang Pauli
Age: 58 †
Born: 1900
Born: April 25
Died: 1958
Died: December 15
Chemist
Physicist
Theoretical Physicist
University Teacher
Vienna
Austria
Wolfgang Ernst Pauli
Science
Theoretician
Mean
Nonsense
Rule
Universal
Pure
Says
Quite
Means

More quotes by Wolfgang Pauli

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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
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That's not right. That's not even wrong.
Wolfgang Pauli
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It is always the older that emanates the new one.
Wolfgang Pauli
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God made the bulk the surface was invented by the devil.
Wolfgang Pauli
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It is not only not right, it is not even wrong.
Wolfgang Pauli
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If I understand Dirac correctly, his meaning is this: there is no God, and Dirac is his Prophet.
Wolfgang Pauli
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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
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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
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This isn't right. This isn't even wrong.
Wolfgang Pauli
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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
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You know, what Einstein has just said isn't so stupid.
Wolfgang Pauli
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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
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Everything comes to him who knows how to wait.
Wolfgang Pauli
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That theory is worthless. It isn't even wrong!
Wolfgang Pauli
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Aristotle was by far a less able thinker than Plato ... he was completely overwhelmed by Plato.
Wolfgang Pauli
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Well, our friend Dirac, too, has a religion, and its guiding principle is God does not exist and Dirac is His prophet.
Wolfgang Pauli
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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
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After reading a paper by a young theoretical scientist, Pauli, shaking his head sadly, commented: That is not even wrong.
Wolfgang Pauli
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The best that most of us can hope to achieve in physics is simply to misunderstand at a deeper level.
Wolfgang Pauli
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One shouldn't work on semiconductors, that is a filthy mess who knows whether any semiconductors exist.
Wolfgang Pauli