Pauli

[Victor Steinbok]

Wolfgang Pauli usually gets credit for the quit, "That's not right--it's
not even wrong!" (or something similar, depending on source). The common
reference for this is from Rudolph Peierls's 1960 recollections (I can't
really call it an obituary):

Rudolph Peierls, "Wolfgang Ernst Pauli, 1900-1958." (Royal Society, GB)
Biographical memoirs of fellows of the Royal Society 5:174-192 (1960)

Wiki not only highlights the whole episode in the article on Pauli:

> Das ist nicht nur nicht richtig, es ist nicht einmal falsch! "Not only
> is it not right, it's not even wrong!"

but even has a separate entry for "not even wrong":

> An argument that appears to be scientific is said to be not even wrong
> if it cannot be falsified (i.e., tested) by experiment or cannot be
> used to make predictions about the natural world. The phrase was
> coined by theoretical physicist Wolfgang Pauli, who was known for his
> colorful objections to incorrect or sloppy thinking. Rudolf Peierls
> writes that "a friend showed [Pauli] the paper of a young physicist
> which he suspected was not of great value but on which he wanted
> Pauli's views. Pauli remarked sadly, 'It is not even wrong.' "

It may be impossible to either verify or reject the origin of the
phrase--Pauli died in 1958, leaving a large number of anecdotes about
his life, but not a lot of biographical material, and the quip was
originally supposed to be in German. However, recognizing Pauli's sense
of humor, it is possible that he might have been mocking a religious
argument that relied on a strawman statement that needed a rebuttal, e.g.,

http://goo.gl/2yadK
Principles of the faith in relation to sin. By Orby Shipley. 1879
> Take three strict rules for guidance, in regard to devout jealousy
> against falling into little sins.
>
> i. Never to allow self-indulgence in any known fault, however small.
>
> People, in relation to this rule, may be heard to say, " Yes ; it is
> not right ; it is even wrong ; but, still, I do allow myself in such
> and such a liberty."

My brief search revealed little useful information and the statement may
well be original with Pauli. I thought I would throw it out into the
ether and see if anyone has the stomach to check it out deeper (and
perhaps check it out in German as well).

     VS-)

PS: I was wondering about the origin because Pauli's other famous quip,
also cited in Wiki has an alternative origin.

> "Well, I'd say that also our friend Dirac has got a religion and the
> first commandment of this religion is 'God does not exist and Paul
> Dirac is his prophet'".

As Wiki suggests, a similar statement was made much earlier about Robert
Green Ingersoll. Although it's impossible to judge whether Pauli was
familiar with the previous quip, the likelihood of coincidence seems
rather small.

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