If speculative ideas can not be tested, they're not science; they don't even rise to the level of being wrong. Wolfgang Pauli More Quotes by Wolfgang Pauli More Quotes From Wolfgang Pauli I have done a terrible thing, I have postulated a particle that cannot be detected. Wolfgang Pauli particles terrible done The best that most of us can hope to achieve in physics is simply to misunderstand at a deeper level. Wolfgang Pauli achieve physics levels That's not right. That's not even wrong. Wolfgang Pauli science God made the bulk; the surface was invented by the devil. Wolfgang Pauli surface devil made Everything comes to him who knows how to wait. Wolfgang Pauli know-how waiting knows 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 events roles science The fact that the author thinks slowly is not serious, but the fact that he publishes faster than he thinks is inexcusable. Wolfgang Pauli science facts thinking To us ... the only acceptable point of view appears to be the one that recognizes both sides of reality-the quantitative and the qualitative, the physical and the psychical-as compatible with each other, and can embrace them simultaneously ... It would be most satisfactory of all if physis and psyche (i.e., matter and mind) could be seen as complementary aspects of the same reality. Wolfgang Pauli views science reality 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 comedian wish science A colleague who met me strolling rather aimlessly in the beautiful streets of Copenhagen said to me in a friendly manner, "You look very unhappy"; whereupon I answered fiercely, "How can one look happy when he is thinking about the anomalous Zeeman effect?". Wolfgang Pauli unhappy beautiful thinking How can one avoid despondency if one thinks of the anomalous Zeeman effect? Wolfgang Pauli despondency effects thinking Well, our friend Dirac, too, has a religion, and its guiding principle is "God does not exist and Dirac is His prophet." Wolfgang Pauli there-is-no-god guiding-principles prophet 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 mean reality ideas You know, what Einstein has just said isn't so stupid. Wolfgang Pauli stupid knows said When one analyzes the pre-conscious step to concepts, one always finds ideas which consist of 'symbolic images.' The first step to thinking is a painted vision of these inner pictures whose origin cannot be reduced only and firstly to the sensual perception but which are produced by an 'instinct to imagining' and which are re-produced by different individuals independently, i.e. collectively... But the archaic image is also the necessary predisposition and the source of a scientific attitude. To a total recognition belong also those images out of which have grown the rational concepts. Wolfgang Pauli attitude ideas thinking Although I have no objection to accepting the existence of relatively constant psychic contents that survive personal ego, it must always be born in mind that we have no way of knowing what these contents are actually like "as such." All we can observe is their effect on other living people, whose spiritual level and whose personal unconscious crucially influence the way these contents actually manifest themselves. Wolfgang Pauli psychics knowing spiritual I refuse to believe that God is a weak left-hander. Wolfgang Pauli left-handers weak believe 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 different inspiration sometimes For quite a while I have set for myself the rule if a theoretician says 'universal' it just means pure nonsense. Wolfgang Pauli nonsense science mean From the point of view of logic, my report on 'Exclusion principle and quantum mechanics' has no conclusion. I believe that it will only be possible to write the conclusion if a theory will be established which will determine the value of the fine structure constant and will thus explain the atomistic structure of electricity, which is such an essential quality of all atomic sources of electric fields actually occurring in nature. Wolfgang Pauli views writing believe
