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OT: RIP Steven Weinberg, Noble Prize Physicist.

These old school physicists were awesome. They brooked zero nonsense.

You were wrong, they told you were wrong, in no uncertain terms.

And they could back it up.

Great men - more than you could ever mention on this page.
 
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That's a beautiful quote. Thanks for it. It signals that it's time to take another break from the board.

Except we are ALL.-KNOWING. o_O , meaning obviously, we know more than Mr. Fancy Pants Nobel Laureate. 🙄
 
These old school physicists were awesome. They brooked zero nonsense.

You were wrong, they told you were wrong, in no uncertain terms.

And they could back it up.

Great men - more than you could ever mention on this page.
There is something even worse than being told you are wrong. In a quote attributed to Wolfgang Pauli responding to someone who proposed an idea that was devoid of any identifiable physics, Pauli inserted the verbal dagger, "That' not right. That's not even wrong".
 
There is something even worse than being told you are wrong. In a quote attributed to Wolfgang Pauli responding to someone who proposed an idea that was devoid of any identifiable physics, Pauli inserted the verbal dagger, "That' not right. That's not even wrong".
Pauli could gut anyone in two seconds flat. I’ve read multiple biographies of physicists, Einstein, Heisenberg, Feynman, and in just about every one Pauli makes an appearance and rips someone to shreds.

lol, I just left Pauli’s Wiki page. Paraphrasing, Paul Ehrenfest, a very fine physicist, met Pauli for the first time at a conference and after taking with Pauli for five minutes said, “I like your work much more than I like you.” Pauli: “That’s funny. With me, it’s exactly the other way around.”

Feynman could be rough too. I recall a story in which he left Kip Thorne (2017 Nobel Prize in Physics) in tears.
 
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Pauli could gut anyone in two seconds flat. I’ve read multiple biographies of physicists, Heisenberg, Feynman, and in just about every one Pauli makes an appearance and rips someone to shreds.

Here are a few more Pauli Quotes:

"If I understand Dirac correctly, his meaning is this: There is no God, and Dirac is his prophet".

On questioning whether the weak interaction breaks left-right symmetry: "I refuse to believe that God is a weak left-hander".

On Pauli's postulating the existence of the massless and extremely hard-to-detect neutrino, "I have done a terrible thing. I have postulated a particle that cannot be detected".

Finally, one I have used (with attribution, of course) in my presentations at conferences: "God made the bulk; the surface was invented by the Devil".
 
Here are a few more Pauli Quotes:

"If I understand Dirac correctly, his meaning is this: There is no God, and Dirac is his prophet".

On questioning whether the weak interaction breaks left-right symmetry: "I refuse to believe that God is a weak left-hander".

On Pauli's postulating the existence of the massless and extremely hard-to-detect neutrino, "I have done a terrible thing. I have postulated a particle that cannot be detected".

Finally, one I have used (with attribution, of course) in my presentations at conferences: "God made the bulk; the surface was invented by the Devil".
Yeah, about that Dirac quote, Dirac was in the room when he said it. The whole room burst out laughing.
 
It is amazing how direct and yet fun loving these guys were.

It was the norm in every technical department - no quarter asked, and none given.

No one even cared.

Such a good environment. All gone now.
 
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It is amazing how direct and yet fun loving these guys were.

It was the norm in every technical department - no quarter asked, and none given.

No one even cared.

Such a good environment. All gone now.
They were pranksters as well. Pauli had a reputation that experiments would not work in his presence (The Pauli Curse). On his visit to a lab, his colleagues had rigged an elaborate setup to make it appear to go wrong just as he entered the lab. Pauli entered the lab, they pressed the button to create the illusion of catastrophe, but of course nothing happened.
 
For the next generation, who hasn't seen this type of confident, relaxed behavior, we need to find a way to give it back to them.



It is amazing how direct and yet fun loving these guys were.

It was the norm in every technical department - no quarter asked, and none given.

No one even cared.

Such a good environment. All gone now.

They were pranksters as well. Pauli had a reputation that experiments would not work in his presence (The Pauli Curse). On his visit to a lab, his colleagues had rigged an elaborate setup to make it appear to go wrong just as he entered the lab. Pauli entered the lab, they pressed the button to create the illusion of catastrophe, but of course nothing happened.
Pauli could gut anyone in two seconds flat. I’ve read multiple biographies of physicists, Einstein, Heisenberg, Feynman, and in just about every one Pauli makes an appearance and rips someone to shreds.

lol, I just left Pauli’s Wiki page. Paraphrasing, Paul Ehrenfest, a very fine physicist, met Pauli for the first time at a conference and after taking with Pauli for five minutes said, “I like your work much more than I like you.” Pauli: “That’s funny. With me, it’s exactly the other way around.”

Feynman could be rough too. I recall a story in which he left Kip Thorne (2017 Nobel Prize in Physics) in tears.
 
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Reactions: Leo Ridens
I had the privilege of meeting dr. John wheeler while staying on the family island in Maine as a guest of his granddaughter. (Stayed in the cabin he lent to Watson to write the double helix). A man with a twinkle in his eye. Was hard of hearing, but had a c.1910 artillery cannon that he would shoot coffee cans into the bay out of. Big storm came through, knocking down tree over causeway. He comes trudging up hill in driving rain with tiny chainsaw (at age 80). We stopped him and took care of it.
 
There is something even worse than being told you are wrong. In a quote attributed to Wolfgang Pauli responding to someone who proposed an idea that was devoid of any identifiable physics, Pauli inserted the verbal dagger, "That' not right. That's not even wrong".

“You know, what Einstein has just said isn’t so stupid.” - WP
 
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