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person1925–1958

Wolfgang Pauli

Disciplines:
physics
quantum mechanics
zurich
physics/exclusion principle

Summary

Austrian-Swiss theoretical physicist who received the 1945 Nobel Prize for the Pauli exclusion principle — and who, while in Jungian analysis with a student of Jung's, entered a 25-year intellectual correspondence with Jung about synchronicity, the relationship between quantum mechanics and psychology, and the unus mundus.

Core Contribution

Demonstrated that the greatest physicist of his generation found Jungian psychology intellectually serious — Pauli's engagement with synchronicity, his own dreams (the World Clock dream), and his interest in the relationship between the observer and the observed in quantum mechanics created the most prestigious scientific engagement with depth psychology.

Notable Works & Achievements

The Interpretation of Nature and Psyche

Historical Influences

Sommerfeld Bohr Heisenberg

Intellectual Lineage

Vienna Munich and HamburgZurich ETH

Contemporaries & Peers

Heisenberg Einstein Jung

Minds Influenced

Quantum mechanics Jungian synchronicity Jungian tradition

Intellectual Posterity

Pauli exclusion principlePauli effectJung-Pauli collaboration Neutrino

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Wolfgang Pauli

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