Wolfgang Pauli
Formulated the exclusion principle
Most quoted
"When I was young, I thought I was the best formalist of my time. I thought I was a revolutionary. When the big problems would come, I would be the one to solve them. But then the great revolution came, it was Heisenberg and Dirac who made it. I was only a classicist."
— from Self-reflection
"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."
— from Letter to Markus Fierz, 1954
"A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it."
— from Attributed to Max Planck, but often quoted by Pauli in discussions of scientific change
All quotes by Wolfgang Pauli (673)
The only thing that is constant is change.
One should not try to be original, but rather to be good.
The best way to do physics is to have a good idea and then to work it out.
The exclusion principle is the key to understanding the structure of matter.
I have done a terrible thing, I have postulated a particle that cannot be detected.
The great problem of science is to understand the world, not to explain it away.
The only way to learn physics is to do physics.
Physics is too hard for physicists.
The most important thing in science is to ask the right questions.
The future of physics lies in the unification of all forces.
The problem of the observer in quantum mechanics is a deep philosophical problem.
The concept of 'reality' is much more subtle than we usually assume.
The true scientist is a dreamer, and a dreamer who is also a doer.
The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science.
The exclusion principle is a fundamental law of nature.
The neutrino is a particle that has no charge, no mass, and no spin.
The problem of consciousness is the last frontier of science.
The physicist's task is to find the laws of nature, not to invent them.
The most profound discoveries are often the simplest.
The progress of science depends on the courage to question established beliefs.
Contemporaries of Wolfgang Pauli
Other Physicss born within 50 years of Wolfgang Pauli (1900–1958).