Pauli Lectures on Physics: Volume 5, Wave Mechanics

by Wolfgang Pauli, Victor F. Weisskopf (Foreword), S. Margulies (Translator)

In the 1950s, the distinguished theoretical physicist Wolfgang Pauli delivered a landmark series of lectures at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich. His comprehensive coverage of the fundamentals of classical and modern physics was painstakingly recorded not only by his students, but also by a number of collaborators whose carefully edited transcriptions resulted in a remarkable six-volume work.
This volume, the fifth in the series, focuses on topics chosen by Pauli for their conceptual and historical the probabilistic nature of quantum theory, the concept of spin, the problem of identical particles, and the relation of the statistics of rotational states of diatomic molecules to nuclear spin. Chapter headings include Wave Functions of Force-Free Particles, Description of a Particle in a Box and in Free Space, Particle in a Field of Force, More than One Particle, Eigenvalue Problems, Collision Processes, Angular Momentum and Spin, Identical Particles with Spin, and more.
Originally published in 1973, the text remains an important resource thanks to Pauli's manner of presentation. As Victor F. Weisskopf notes in the Foreword to the series, Pauli's style is "commensurate to the greatness of its subject in its clarity and impact .… Pauli’s lectures show how physical ideas can be presented clearly and in good mathematical form, without being hidden in formalistic expertise." Alone or as part of the complete set, this volume represents a mathematically rigorous treatment that will be invaluable to individuals, as well as to libraries and other institutions.

Genres: Physics

205 pages, Paperback

First published June 15, 1977

About the author

Dr. Wolfgang Ernst Pauli, Ph.D. (Ludwig-Maximilians University, 1921), was a theoretical physicist and one of the pioneers of quantum mechanics, for which he was awarded the 1945 Nobel Prize in Physics. His paper on Einstein's theory of relativity, written two months after receiving his doctorate, remains a standard reference on the subject to this day. In the field of quantum theory, the "Pauli exclusion principle" is named for him; he also developed the theory of nonrelativistic spin.

In 1928, Pauli was appointed Professor of Theoretical Physics at ETH Zurich in Switzerland. He held visiting professorships at the University of Michigan in 1931, and the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton in 1935. He was awarded the Lorentz Medal in 1931.

At the end of 1930, shortly after his postulation of the neutrino and immediately following his November divorce, Pauli had a severe breakdown. He consulted psychiatrist and psychotherapist Carl Jung who, like Pauli, lived near Zurich. Jung immediately began interpreting Pauli's deeply archetypal dreams, and Pauli became one of the depth psychologist's best students. He soon began to criticize the epistemology of Jung's theory scientifically, and this contributed to a certain clarification of the latter's thoughts, especially about the concept of synchronicity. A great many of these discussions are documented in the Pauli/Jung letters, today published as Atom and Archetype . Jung's elaborate analysis of more than 400 of Pauli's dreams is documented in Psychology and Alchemy .

The German annexation of Austria in 1938 made Pauli a German citizen, which became a problem for him in 1939 after the outbreak of World War II. In 1940, he tried in vain to obtain Swiss citizenship, which would have allowed him to remain at the ETH. Pauli moved to the United States in 1940, where he was employed as a professor of theoretical physics at the Institute for Advanced Study. In 1946, after the war, he became a naturalized citizen of the United States and subsequently returned to Zurich, where he mostly remained for the rest of his life. In 1949, he was granted Swiss citizenship.

In 1958, Pauli was awarded the Max Planck medal. In that same year, he fell ill with pancreatic cancer.