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more general categories information about this item 10. Noble Prize 10. Noble Prize Physics (209) 11. Award Year 11. Award Year 1940s (43) 1945 (7) 12. Winner Type 12. Winner Type Person (904) 13. Gender 13. Gender Male (853) 14. Birth Year 14. Birth Year 1900s (92) 1900 (8) 15. Place of Birth 15. Place of Birth Europe (459) Europe, central (101) Austria (17) Vienna (14) 16. Death Year 16. Death Year 1950s (45) 1958 (8) 17. Place of Death 17. Place of Death Europe (331) Europe, western (182) Switzerland (26) Zürich (7) 19. Given Name 19. Given Name S-Z (143) W (48) 20. Family Name 20. Family Name L-R (258) P (41) 21. Shared Given Name 21. Shared Given Name S-Z (69) W (37) Wolfgang (3) 23. Religion 23. Religion Religious group (353) Judaism (160) 24. Age at Award Time 24. Age at Award Time 40 - 49 (140) 46 (13) 32. Occupations 32. Occupations Life, Physical, and Social Science Occupations (601) Physical Scientists (333) Astronomers and Physicists (222) Physicists (206) 33. Ethnic Origins 33. Ethnic Origins Asia (244) Middle East (197) Israel (197) 34. Citizens 34. Citizens North America (328) United States (307) 37. Worked for College or University 37. Worked for College or University North America (309) United States (303) Middle Atlantic states (33) New Jersey (16) Princeton (14) Princeton University (14) 42. Affilliation with College or University 42. Affilliation with College or University Europe (535) Europe, central (165) Germany (154) Göttingen (44) University of Göttingen (44) Short-term academic staff (17) Hamburg (8) University of Hamburg (8) Short-term academic staff (4) Munich (51) University of Munich (42) Alumni (28) Europe, Nordic countries (83) Denmark (39) Copenhagen (39) University of Copenhagen (39) Short-term academic staff (26) Europe, western (390) Switzerland (65) Zurich (49) ETH Zurich (32) Long-term academic staff (9) North America (529) United States (521) Middle Atlantic states (178) New Jersey (70) Princeton (65) Princeton University (65) Long-term academic staff (25) Midwestern states (201) Indiana (17) West Lafayette (9) Purdue University (9) Short-term academic staff (4) Michigan (25) Ann Arbor (25) University of Michigan (25) Short-term academic staff (13) 43. Affilliation with Secondary School 43. Affilliation with Secondary School Europe (60) Europe, central (2) Austria (2) Vienna (2) Döblinger Gymnasium (2) 44. Memberships 44. Memberships A-D (656) A (635) American Academy of Arts and Sciences (531) American Association for the Advancement of Science (95) American Physical Society (113) B (102) Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities (67) E-P (571) H (88) Heidelberg Academy for Sciences and Humanities (28) R-T (460) R (448) Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (64) Royal Society (294) Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences (111) 45. Other Awards 45. Other Awards C-D (404) D (194) doctor honoris causa (31) E-F (439) F (394) Franklin Medal (45) K-L (297) L (183) Lorentz Medal (11) M-N (333) M (172) Matteucci Medal (29) Max Planck Medal (20) complete name: Wolfgang Pauli nobel prize: physics award year: 1945 prize share: Prize share: 1/1 rational: The Nobel Prize in Physics 1945 was awarded to Wolfgang Pauli "for the discovery of the Exclusion Principle, also called the Pauli Principle." biography: Biography laureate facts: Facts laureate lecture: Lecture given name: Wolfgang family name: Pauli occupation: professor occupation: theoretical physicist field of work: quantum mechanics field of work: particle physics work location: University of Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany description: Wolfgang Pauli was born in Vienna to a chemist Wolfgang Joseph Pauli (né Wolf Pascheles, 1869-1955) and his wife Bertha Camilla Schütz; his sister was Hertha Pauli, the writer and actress. Pauli's middle name was given in honor of his godfather, physicist Ernst Mach. Pauli's paternal grandparents were from prominent Jewish families of Prague; his great-grandfather was the Jewish publisher Wolf Pascheles. Pauli's father converted from Judaism to Roman Catholicism shortly before his marriage in 1899. Pauli's mother, Bertha Schütz, was raised in her own mother's Roman Catholic religion; her father was Jewish writer Friedrich Schütz. Pauli was raised as a Roman Catholic, although eventually he and his parents left the Church. He is considered to have been a deist and a mystic. Pauli attended the Döblinger-Gymnasium in Vienna, graduating with distinction in 1918. Only two months after graduation, he published his first paper, on Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity. He attended the Ludwig-Maximilians University in Munich, working under Arnold Sommerfeld, where he received his PhD in July 1921 for his thesis on the quantum theory of ionized diatomic hydrogen (H+2). Sommerfeld asked Pauli to review the theory of relativity for the Encyklopädie der mathematischen Wissenschaften (Encyclopedia of Mathematical Sciences). Two months after receiving his doctorate, Pauli completed the article, which came to 237 pages. It was praised by Einstein; published as a monograph, it remains a standard reference on the subject to this day. Pauli spent a year at the University of Göttingen as the assistant to Max Born, and the following year at the Institute for Theoretical Physics in Copenhagen, which later became the Niels Bohr Institute in 1965. From 1923 to 1928, he was a lecturer at the University of Hamburg. During this period, Pauli was instrumental in the development of the modern theory of quantum mechanics. In particular, he formulated the exclusion principle and the theory of nonrelativistic spin. In 1928, he was appointed Professor of Theoretical Physics at ETH Zurich in Switzerland where he made significant scientific progress. 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 divorce in November, 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 him 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. When his last assistant, Charles Enz, visited him at the Rotkreuz hospital in Zurich, Pauli asked him: "Did you see the room number?" It was number 137. Throughout his life, Pauli had been preoccupied with the question of why the fine structure constant, a dimensionless fundamental constant, has a value nearly equal to 1/137. Pauli died in that room on 15 December 1958. image copyright: Photo from the Nobel Foundation archive. image citation: The Nobel Prize in Physics 1945. NobelPrize.org. Nobel Media AB 2018. <https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/1945/summary/> date birth: 1900 date death: 1958 usual name: Wolfgang Pauli