No Time to be Brief: A Scientific Biography of Wolfgang Pauli

No Time to be Brief: A Scientific Biography of Wolfgang Pauli

This book retraces the life of the physicist Wolfgang Pauli, analyzes 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 occupy 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. "Writing a full Pauli biography is a task of moving mountains, and Enz...is the first person to try. He starts from his own experience working as Pauli's last assistant and he draws on his sympathies for Pauli's varied concerns....The bulk of Enz's biography is taken up by careful analyses of Pauli's scientific contributions. Working through the publications paper by paper, the book carries the reader along Enz's own trajectory. The author has educated himself in a vast range of material, including work of many other physicists, and his insights will be very useful to anyone who wants to dig into Pauli's physics....Because Pauli's letters and papers were largely written in German, they are closed to most readers; Enz does a great service by writing his biography in English....Enz's portrait fascinates, and much in No Time To Be Brief will last....Enz's unique perspective and detailed analyses offer a great deal."-- Science "Enz, Pauli's last assistant at the Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule in Zurich, Switzerland, has prepared a remarkable biography following both its subject's life and career in theoretical physicsDrawing extensively on published correspondence and unpublished sources, this rich and nicely detailed account interweaves the technical richness of Pauli's theoretical work with a full account of his very interesting personal lifeAlthough theoretical physicists and mathematicians will profit mostly from this very detailed study, so will anyone interested in one of the 20th century's great physicistsA most informative and detailed scientific biography."--J.W. Dauben, CHOICE This book retraces the life of the physicist Wolfgang Pauli, analyze his scientific work, and describes the evolution of his thinking Professor Charles Enz was Wolfgang Pauli's last research assistant, form 1956 to 1959. He then held appointments at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, the University of Neuchatel, Cornell University, before taking up a post as Professor of Theoretical Physics at Geneva University in 1964. He has been a Fellow of hte American Physical Society since 1986, and a member of the Pauli Committee, CERN, Geneva, since 1985.