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Wolfgang Pauli (1900-1958) was an Austrian-American theoretical physicist and Nobel Laureate, known for his pioneering work on quantum mechanics, particularly the Pauli exclusion principle. | 1900-04-25 | 1958-12-15 | Vienna, Austria |
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2026-10-15 |
Wolfgang Pauli (1900-1958) was an Austrian-American theoretical physicist and Nobel Laureate, known for his pioneering work on quantum mechanics, particularly the Pauli exclusion principle. He is also famously associated with the "Pauli effect," a phenomenon where technical equipment inexplicably malfunctions or breaks in his presence1.
The Pauli effect was coined after numerous instances were noted where Pauli was present and technical equipment malfunctioned, fell, broke, or sustained unusual damage. For example, in February 1950, during a visit to Princeton University, the cyclotron Pauli had come to observe inexplicably caught fire1.
The 1948 letter to Jung
Pauli's own account of the phenomenon is a letter to Jung dated June 16, 1948. It opens: "When that amusing 'Pauli effect' of the overturned vase occurred, on the occasion of the founding of the C. G. Jung Institute, I had the immediate and vivid impression that I should 'pour out water inside'."2 The letter says that the connection between psychology and physics in Jung's talk made clear "what I was to do," and that "the outcome of all this is the enclosed essay."2 The appendix of the letters edition prints an unpublished essay, "Modern Examples of Background Physics" ("Hintergrundsphysik"), which Engelbert Schücking described as found with the correspondence and as addressing its main theme.3
Pauli, along with psychiatrist Carl Jung, had a lively conversation about Extrasensory Perception and Psychokinesis, discussing a paper by physicist Robert A. McConnell titled "ESP - Fact or Fancy?" Jung remarked on how some age-old mysteries never change, and that attempts to explain away seemingly miraculous results often fail against the facts1.
Pauli wrote an article on the subject titled "Background Physics," in which he discussed the relationships between physics, the conscious, and the unconscious1. The appendix of Atom and Archetype (2001 English edition) prints the essay as "Modern Examples of Background Physics" ("Hintergrundsphysik").3 His association with Jung and his interest in the unconscious aspects of reality highlight a unique intersection of physics and parapsychology.
Death
Pauli died of cancer at the Red Cross Hospital in Zürich on December 15, 1958, aged 58.4 The stomach pains began during a lecture on December 5, and on December 6 he was taken to the Red Cross Hospital on Gloriastrasse. On the Monday evening Pauli asked Charles Enz whether he had seen the room number: "137!" Enz replied that it must mean good luck, and Pauli "was not convinced."5 The papers passed to his widow, Franca Pauli, who with Enz, his last assistant, began sorting and administering the collection.4
Footnotes
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Jacobsen, Annie. Phenomena: The Secret History of the U.S. Government's Investigations into Extrasensory Perception and Psychokinesis. Little, Brown and Company, 2017. ↩︎
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C. A. Meier, ed., Atom and Archetype: The Pauli/Jung Letters, 1932-1958 (Princeton University Press, 2001), pp. 33-34, letter of Wolfgang Pauli to C. G. Jung, Zollikon-Zurich, June 16, 1948. ↩︎
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Engelbert L. Schücking, review of Atom and Archetype: The Pauli/Jung Letters, 1932-1958, Physics Today 55, no. 9 (September 2002), DOI 10.1063/1.1522220, https://physicstoday.aip.org/article/55/9/62/757315. ↩︎
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CERN Archives, Archives of Wolfgang Pauli (CERN-ARCH-WP), fonds description, https://archives.cern.ch/index.php/cern-arch-wp. ↩︎
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Charles P. Enz, No Time to Be Brief: A Scientific Biography of Wolfgang Pauli (Oxford University Press, 2002), p. 533. ↩︎