Book Description
This book retraces the life of the physicist Wolfgang Pauli, analyses his scientific work, and describes the evolution of his thinking. Pauli spent 30 years as a professor at the Federal Institute of Technology ETH in Zurich, which occupies a central place in this biography. It would be incomplete, however, without a rendering of Pauli's sarcastic wit and, most importantly, of the world of his dreams. It is through the latter that quite a different aspect of Pauli's life comes in, namely his association with the psychology of C.G. Jung and his school. ... Read more

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Enjoyable read
Fans of modern physics are well acquainted with Pauli. A Nobel Laureate (1945), who is best remembered for the Pauli Exclusion Principle. Enz takes us through Pauli's life. Most notably the crucial years at the Gottingen school of quantum mechanics in the 1920s, where quantum mechanics was born.

The book takes us into his research. But it also conveys some of the intellectual ferment and excitement of those times. And across the pages appear many other august notables in physics. Einstein, Born, Bohr...

Enz also tries to give some insight into Pauli's personality and his dealings with his family.

An enjoyable read. ... Read more

Book Description
Nobel Prize-winning physicist Wolfgang Pauli, whose work contributed to developing the bombs that decimated Hiroshima and Nagasaki, suffered from disturbing dreams that led him to psychologist C.G. Jung.This groundbreaking study traces Pauli's thoughts and dreams over the course of his life. ... Read more

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A fascinating portrait of stellar minds
Wolfgang Pauli and Carl Jung were among a handful of geniuses who transformed the physical and psychological landscapes of the 20th century. Their thoughts about the nature of mind and matter, and the dark side of Western science's "will to power," are especially meaningful today given the material and psychosocial challenges of the 21st century.

I found especially interesting Pauli and Jung's interests in parapsychology and the mind-matter interface. When intellectual giants seriously entertain controversial topics that confuse lesser minds, I pay close attention.

Lindorff's recitals of Pauli's dreams, and Pauli and Jung's symbolic analysis of them, will probably not appeal to readers expecting ordinary biographies. But for those of us who are interested in rational, intuitive, and symbolic ways of knowing, this is a magnificent book.

Response to Dr Russell Rohrde's review.
This is a response by the author to a review of Dr. Rohrde, who apparently formed a judgement of my book without attempting to digest its contents.Pauli was a serious thinker who happened to believe in the collective unconscious.With Jung's help, he sought to understand his dreams, which he saw as opening his mind to the relationship between psyche and matter.Pauli saw this as having far reaching importance to him personally as well as to the future of scientific exploration.

"No Great Expectations, just Great Disappointments"
"Pauli & Jung: The Meetings of Two Great Minds," David Lindorff, IL, Quest Books, 2004ISBN: 0-8356-0837-9, HC 299/244 pgs., Notes 28 pgs., Apps. 8 pgs., Index 17 pgs., 9 1/4" x 6 1/4"

This Ph.D. author worked & taught eletrical enginnering, later a Jungian analyser for 24 years in New England.No previous books.

Chapter I stands alone to provide a meaningful chronology of the life & times of Wolfgang Friedrich Pauli (1900-1958), a child prodigy born in Vienna of Jewish parents but raised as Catholic.He studied at Univ. Munich, did physics research at Hamburg & later at Zurich's ETH. He soon became acquainted with renowned physicists as Bohr, Rabi, Born, Planck, Heisenberg, Fierz, Oppenheimer (visiting) & Einstein.At ETH he sought help in 1932 from C.G. Jung, psychologist, for despondency.When the Nazi anti-Semitism intensified, he left Europe for a position at Princeton's Institute for Advanced Studies in 1940, Einstein already arrived in 1933.Pauli received the 1945 Noble Prize in physics for discovery of the "exclusion principle."

MAJOR FLAW to my mind: - more than half of the treatise, nay 75%, deals with Pauli's recital of dreams spanning sme 25 years (periodically from 1932 - 1957) for Jung to analyze.So now we have embarked on a phantasmal supernatural & primordial journey into the imaginary discarnate world of apparition, archetypal imagery bearing a host of titular Greek names as 'manadala', "acausal connecting principle" of 'synchronicity' embracing ESP, anima/animus, where basic treatment involves introducing the Ego to the "collective unconsciousness." etc.For mythologists this could be a precious piece of prose, but frankly I'd expect readership to be severely wanting.The book is not about God nor about religion, but much closer to an ideology embracing magic, mystery, palmistry, phrenology, & peeking at Peking tea leaves.Speaking of leaves, I'd leave this one alone. ... Read more

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Never knew these lectures were SO good
Ok - so I'd seen these books during my physics graduate school career - but for some reason never picked them up (too short, too concise...not sure what my problem was)!
If I wanted good lectures - I referred to Feynman - and a few other odds and ends.
Recently - I got my hands on the 'Wave Mechanics' lectures by Pauli. Two things struck me about this wonderful exposition
1) Concise clarity - unlike any other book (and I am including Feynman lectures - what Feynman takes 50 pages to convey - Pauli conveys in 5).
2) Mathematical formalism that is easy to understand. Again - unlike Feynman who leaves out bulk of the mathematics for the 'physical understanding'. This is not a critique of Feynman - just that Pauli's lectures excel in BOTH areas - the mathematical as well as the physical formalism.

Lectures by a great master
Pauli was one of the great physicists of the 20th century. He invented neutrinos, for instance. The Pauli principle explains the Periodic Table and the rigidity of matter. These lectures on quantum mechanics are not the famous Handbuch article which was, for many years, a main reference on QM. These are notes taken by his students (and carefully edited by senior physicists, such as Charles Enz)at his classes. They are much more accessible, being meant for students. Being quite compact, I woulnd't say they are adequate for standard beginning students. They are, however, perfect for clarifying subtle points and have an exquisite elegance, in their simplicity. A friend of mine, an eminent experimentalist, considered it "his bible". An interesting exercise in style is comparing these lectures with the analogous ones by Fermi, in his Chicago lectures. Who wins? My favorite is Fermi's. But it is a close match. ... Read more

Book Description
Like Bohr, Einstein and Heisenberg, Wolfgang Pauli was not only a Nobel laureate and one of the creators of modern physics, but also an eminent philosopher of modern science. This is the first book in English to include all his famous articles on physics and epistemology. They wereactually translated during Pauli's lifetime by R. Schlapp and are now edited and annotated by Pauli's former assistant Ch. Enz. Pauli writes about the philosophical significance of complementarity, about space,time and causality, symmetry and the exclusion principle, but also about therole of the unconscious in modern science. His famous article onKepler is included as well as many historical essays on Bohr, Ehrenfest,and Einstein as well as on the influence of the unconscious on scientific theories. The book addresses not only physicists, philosophersand historians of science, but also the general public. ... Read more

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Wonderfully Interesting
This book is a wonderfully interesting series of philosophical writings by one of the foremost quantum physicists.Wolfgang Pauli, one of the originators of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum physics, provides incredibly interesting, if sometimes overly pedantic, philosophical perspectives on a number of issues.One of the more marginalized selections is concerning archetypes and reveals the strong connections that Pauli had with one of the foremost thinkers in the field of psychology: Carl Jung.I highly recommend this book for those interested in gaining greater perspective in the depth of thought that was involved in the development of perhaps the most original and groundbreaking theories of physics. ... Read more

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Pauli has a good time with optics
This is a very short book on optics. It has only some 170 pages!
Still, it's a great fun! Pauli starts witn the Fermat principle and soon finds out the Hamilon-Jacobi equation connected to this variational principle: it's the eikonal equation. He proceeds to get a lot of general results in geometrical optics. After that come interference and diffraction; optics from Maxwell theory,crystal and molecular optics. You'll find fresh perspectives, surprising connections, everywhere. This is the ideal book to review your optical expertise: you'll have lots of fun seeing things you are familiar with, much better done! ... Read more

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A master teaches the basics of quantum field theory
These are notes taken from the Pauli lectures on field quantization at Zurich, where he taught for many years. They are magnificent in their clarity and succint as only Pauli could be. Basically they explain how to quantize the basic free fields and introduce in a beautiful way the Dyson method of introducing (perturbative) interactions, renormalization comprised. Fine points, like the Gupta-Bleuler method, get a critical and clear treatment. The language is surprisingly modern, with emphasis in vacuum expectation values, kernels, etc. The last chapter treats the Feynman method of path integrals. This must have been one of the very first published reviews of this method: it is done, of course, quite originally. One should read every scrap of paper left by Pauli, a deep and original thinker who expressed himself with unsurpassed clarity, let alone this lovingly produced book. ... Read more

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Excellent overview of some very basic problems.
This is a pretty doggone good book!The last chapter, especially the last two pages of the text, provides an excellent synopsis of the long standing problem on the structure of matter. It seems that what is left to be done involves the invention or creation of a different mathematical source which is capable of generating a symmetric tensor of rank two thatwill successfully displace the singularity thru the proper incorporation of the energy tensor, Tuv.This would most certainly shed a new light on the generation of mass and the inherent formation of matter: Form defines Function, Function generates Form.You Betcha!!!

When Classic texts on relativity are mentioned...
Today we think of this text as "dated", but it has become a book that I go back to to find important equations and their explanations. The book by the author of the Pauli group has very little group theory, but the mathematics is "Solid". This one is cheap and worth having!

A standard reference written bya lad
I have to correct the review below (which I wrote myself!): Pauli was 22 when he ended his text. I just learned it. I also learned that Einstein was in awe at the excellence of the lad's review of his theory!Read attentively his exposition of Weyl's theory. A few years later Pauli anticipated Yang and Mills in inventing non-abelian gauge theories, a reformulation, in a different context, of Weyl's. He didn't publish a single line, but, when Yang presented his theory in a semminar at Princeton, before Pauli and Einstein, he (Pauli) demonstrated a surprising familiarity with the idea. Perhaps you can find some evidence of it in the notes Pauli added to the second edition. After all, this is one of the greatest pleasures of reading classics!

a great book by a great physicist
This book was intended as a review of the emerging early scientific papers on special andgeneral relativity. This book is not only listing these extremely usefull references, but is alsogiving a broad historicalperspective. The theory, presented in a mathematical way, is somewhat obscured by the lack of any diagrams. You needsome background in order tofully appreciate this book.

Please create an audio adaptation ...
To the publisher I would appreciate it if the publisher could produce an audio adaptation of this book. I would love to listen to this while I drive to work and to let my 16 month old son listen to it as a bedtime story.Arnold D Veness ... Read more

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A good introduction to statistical mechanics
Wolfgang Pauli really is an expert in explaining the not-so-simple subject of physics to not-so-bright students of the subject. This book is another proof of that. His unique style of using not too clumsy notation and of getting directly to the point (a feat that is hard to achieve in statistical mechanics that must be studied with lots of mathematical prerequisites) could magnetize even the ordinary physics student to read further the text. Studying statistical mechanics, like other fields in physics and mathematics, bears fruit only when reading is accompanied with papers and pen for tracing the computations in the text. But with Pauli's statmech book, calculations with papers and pen can be minimal. In fact, mental calculations can simultaneously go with reading. The reader is properly introduced to the subject because of the simplistic arguments found in the introductory parts, especially the specific topics of billiard ball problems and central forces. The whole chapter under Brownian Motion makes the book independent and the subject very well understood. Historically, ideas in statistical physics was formed due to the inability of classical mechanics to explain the irregularity of motion of dust particles suspended in air or water. The only, but only slightly, "dirty" character of the book is the too early introduction of the subject of quantum statistics due to inadequate presentation of various experimental indications leading to the subject. The book would be a perfect one had Pauli discussed first experiments around the topic. But as an introductory book that inadequacy could be ignored. Generally, the book is good. ... Read more

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A great master teaches electrodynamics
Pauli, who was rated by Born to be as good as Einstein, taught theoretical physics for many years at Technische Hochschule at Zurich. This book is labored on notes taken by students from his lectures on Electrodynamics. This is the book I consult when I am not happy with the explanations in the usual books. If it happens that Pauli touches the subject, I always get what I looked for: conceptual clarity and very good algorithms. Yes, because Pauli, one of the most profound physicists ever, believed that a physicist must calculate. He even "practiced" in his spare time! I especially like, in this book, the derivation of the laws for RLC circuits, rigorously in the field theory way, and absolutely clear and elegant. This is not an introduction to electricity. It is a rather sophisticated introduction to that part of theoretical physics called electrodynamics. In this role, it is certainly among the very best. ... Read more

Book Description

"The Innermost Kernel" recounts the physicist and Nobel Laureate Wolfgang Pauli and his interest in Jungian psychology, philosophy and western world-view. It is also an exploration of the intellectual setting and context of Pauli's thinking, which has its starting point in the cultural and intellectual climate of fin-de-siècle Europe. As a contribution to the general history of quantum physics this study has a special focus on the psychological and philosophical issues discussed by physicists belonging to the Copenhagen school. The work is mainly based on the correspondence of the principle characters and explores some of the central issues discussed there, as for instance the subject-object relation, complementarity, the relation of conscious and unconscious, the process underlying concept-formation, the psychology of scientific discovery, the symbolic world of alchemy, the theories of archetypes and of synchronicity. Ultimately this book is about a remarkable scientist searching for a new understanding of the interrelatedness of man and world.

Customer Reviews (1)

What work!
Dr. Gieser has done more than recount, she has sensitively synthesized, created and advanced a beautiful platform for understanding the purpose of two different but similarly driven giants. A magnificent achievement! ... Read more

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Lectures by a great master.
Max Born, who knew both, rated Pauli as good as Einstein. I don't agree, but, OK, it's a nice compliment! Anyway, Pauli was really great, and a great writer, in this case far surpassing Einstein. These are his lectures (mostly) on Thermodynamics at the ETH, Zurich, which, by the way, was Einstein's alma mater.
Pauli lectured on all of theoretical phyisics there, for several years. He was revered, and the students carefully took notes of whatever he said and write. These notes were then carefully edited by senior colleagues, like Charles Enz. The result was a slim, compact, wonderful text of Carnot-cycle thermodynamics which has even some originality: the master deemed it necessary to reformulate the treatment of chemical equilibrium (using van't Hoof boxes)to reach his standards of excellence.
This is not a text-book on thermodynamics for beginners: it is a
exquisite booklet to polish your understanding and reveal the great elegance and depth of the thermodynamical formalism and, most importantly, ideas. ... Read more

Book Description
Im Alter von 21 Jahren hat W. Pauli einen Handbuchartikel zur Relativitätstheorie verfaßt, der bis heute gelesen und zitiert wird. Er ist wohl der berühmteste Text zum Thema und wurde nicht zuletzt von A. Einstein begeistert gewürdigt. Die vorliegende Neuausgabe enthält den Originalartikel sowie weitere, teilweise recht ausführliche Ergänzungen, die Pauli im Jahre 1956 für die englische Ausgabe schrieb. Eine Reihe von Anmerkungen des Herausgebers dienen darüber hinaus als Lesehilfen und zeigen Verbindungen zu modernen Entwicklungen auf. ... Read more