In commemoration of Wolfgang Pauli
JUL 01, 1959
A memorial service for W. Pauli, whose death on the 15th of December saddened the world of physics, was held at Fraumünster in Zürich, Switzerland, on Saturday, December 20, 1958. Among those who came to pay their last respects were Prof. Fierz, whose address is printed in translation below, and Prof. Weisskopf, whose words of tribute apprar on p. 19. A former assistant to Pauli (1936–40), Marcus Fierz is professor of theoretical physics at the University of Basle and is editor of Helvetica Physica Acta. Victor Weisskopf, Pauli’s collaborator in Zürich from 1933 to 1936, is professor of physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He flew to Switzerland to attend the memorial service as a representative of the National Academy of Sciences.
Wolfgang Pauli’s death came unexpectedly. Indeed, we knew that something distressed and tormented him for some time, but what it was we did not know. Now we know that with a severe and latent physical affliction the shadow of death encompassed him. In Pauli we not only lost a great theoretical physicist, but also a most impressive and remarkable man. For all of us the world grew poorer.
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More about the authors
Marcus E. Fierz,
University of Basle.
Victor F. Weisskopf,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
© 1959 American Institute of Physics
