Wolfgang Ernst Pauli (/ˈpɔːli/;[6] German: [ˈvɔlfɡaŋ ˈpaʊli]; 25 April 1900 – 15 December 1958) was an Austrian theoretical physicist and a pioneer of quantum physics.

He attended the University of Munich, working under Arnold Sommerfeld,[1] where he received his PhD in July 1921 for his thesis on the quantum theory of ionized diatomic hydrogen (H+2).

[2][10] Sommerfeld asked Pauli to review the theory of relativity for the Encyklopädie der mathematischen Wissenschaften (Encyclopedia of Mathematical Sciences).

At the end of 1930, shortly after his postulation of the neutrino and immediately after his divorce and his mother's suicide, Pauli experienced a personal crisis.

[15] In 1940, Pauli moved to the United States, where he was employed as a professor of theoretical physics at the Institute for Advanced Study.

When his last assistant, Charles Enz, visited him at the Rotkreuz hospital in Zürich, Pauli asked him, "Did you see the room number?"

He seldom published papers, preferring lengthy correspondences with colleagues such as Niels Bohr from the University of Copenhagen in Denmark and Werner Heisenberg, with whom he had close friendships.

[19] In 1926, shortly after Heisenberg published the matrix theory of modern quantum mechanics, Pauli used it to derive the observed spectrum of the hydrogen atom.

In a letter of 4 December to Lise Meitner et al., beginning, "Dear radioactive ladies and gentlemen", he proposed the existence of a hitherto unobserved neutral particle with a small mass, no greater than 1% the mass of a proton, to explain the continuous spectrum of beta decay.

The neutrino was first confirmed experimentally in 1956 by Frederick Reines and Clyde Cowan, two and a half years before Pauli's death.

In 1949, he published a paper on Pauli–Villars regularization: regularization is the term for techniques that modify infinite mathematical integrals to make them finite during calculations, so that one can identify whether the intrinsically infinite quantities in the theory (mass, charge, wavefunction) form a finite and hence calculable set that can be redefined in terms of their experimental values, which criterion is termed renormalization, and which removes infinities from quantum field theories, but also importantly allows the calculation of higher-order corrections in perturbation theory.

Pauli made repeated criticisms of the modern synthesis of evolutionary biology,[21][22] and his contemporary admirers point to modes of epigenetic inheritance as supporting his arguments.

[23] Paul Drude in 1900 proposed the first theoretical model for a classical electron moving through a metallic solid.

[25] The Pauli effect was named after his anecdotal bizarre ability to break experimental equipment simply by being in its vicinity.

These strange occurrences were in line with his controversial investigations into the legitimacy of parapsychology, particularly his collaboration with C. G. Jung on synchronicity.

But this was not his most severe criticism, which he reserved for theories or theses so unclearly presented as to be untestable or unevaluatable and thus not properly belonging within the realm of science, even though posing as such.

"[1] His supposed remark when meeting another leading physicist, Paul Ehrenfest, illustrates this notion of an arrogant Pauli.

After a few minutes of conversation, Ehrenfest remarked, "I think I like your Encyclopedia article [on relativity theory] better than I like you," to which Pauli retorted, "That's strange.

A somewhat warmer picture emerges from this story, which appears in the article on Dirac: Werner Heisenberg [in Physics and Beyond, 1971] recollects a friendly conversation among young participants at the 1927 Solvay Conference, about Einstein and Planck's views on religion.

Dirac's contribution was a poignant and clear criticism of the political manipulation of religion, that was much appreciated for its lucidity by Bohr, when Heisenberg reported it to him later.

If we are honest – and as scientists honesty is our precise duty – we cannot help but admit that any religion is a pack of false statements, deprived of any real foundation.

[31] Pauli thought that elements of quantum physics pointed to a deeper reality that might explain the mind/matter gap and wrote, "we must postulate a cosmic order of nature beyond our control to which both the outward material objects and the inward images are subject.

"[32] Pauli and Jung held that this reality was governed by common principles ("archetypes") that appear as psychological phenomena or as physical events.