In 1930 Pauli elaborated one of the most important contributions to the progress of physics, the existence of the neutrino, which he described almost thirty years later as "the stupid child of my existential crisis"
That year was particularly unpleasant for him. After less than a year of marriage, he divorced his first wife and began to have serious problems with alcoholism, probably determined by various factors and not only by the failed marriage, so much so that his father pushed him to entrust himself to the care of the psychoanalyst Carl Jung.
The news relating to the neutrino hypothesis dates back to the exact week of his divorce, but the letter he sent on December 4, 1930 to the participants of a Congress in Tübingen is famous, which read more or less like this:
Dear Radioactive Ladies and Gentlemen, because of the continuous spectrum of beta decay, I have thought of a desperate remedy to save statistics and the principle of conservation of energy. It is the possibility that there exists in the nucleus an electrically neutral particle, which I will call a neutron - today known as a neutrino - with spin 1/2 and that respects the exclusion principle, but which is different from photons. The mass of the neutron should be similar to that of the electron and in any case not greater than 1% of the mass of the proton. We could thus explain the continuous spectrum by assuming that in beta decay a neutron is emitted together with the electron, so that the sum of their energies is constant.
But so far I do not dare to publish anything on this idea, and first of all I confidently turn to you, dear radioactive people, with the question of how likely it is to find experimental evidence for this new particle.
I agree that this remedy may seem incredible, but only those who dare can win and the difficult situation we find ourselves in is well illustrated by a phrase that my illustrious predecessor, Mr. Debye, recently told me in Brussels ... "it is better not to think about it, just like with new taxes". From now on, every solution is worth considering. Therefore, dear radioactives, examine and judge.
Your humble servant, W. Pauli.”
In 1930 Pauli elaborated one of the most important contributions to the progress of physics, the existence of the neutrino, which he described almost thirty years later as "the stupid child of my existential crisis"
That year was particularly unpleasant for him. After less than a year of marriage, he divorced his first wife and began to have serious problems with alcoholism, probably determined by various factors and not only by the failed marriage, so much so that his father pushed him to entrust himself to the care of the psychoanalyst Carl Jung.
The news relating to the neutrino hypothesis dates back to the exact week of his divorce, but the letter he sent on December 4, 1930 to the participants of a Congress in Tübingen is famous, which read more or less like this:
Dear Radioactive Ladies and Gentlemen, because of the continuous spectrum of beta decay, I have thought of a desperate remedy to save statistics and the principle of conservation of energy. It is the possibility that there exists in the nucleus an electrically neutral particle, which I will call a neutron - today known as a neutrino - with spin 1/2 and that respects the exclusion principle, but which is different from photons. The mass of the neutron should be similar to that of the electron and in any case not greater than 1% of the mass of the proton. We could thus explain the continuous spectrum by assuming that in beta decay a neutron is emitted together with the electron, so that the sum of their energies is constant.
But so far I do not dare to publish anything on this idea, and first of all I confidently turn to you, dear radioactive people, with the question of how likely it is to find experimental evidence for this new particle.
I agree that this remedy may seem incredible, but only those who dare can win and the difficult situation we find ourselves in is well illustrated by a phrase that my illustrious predecessor, Mr. Debye, recently told me in Brussels ... "it is better not to think about it, just like with new taxes". From now on, every solution is worth considering. Therefore, dear radioactives, examine and judge.
Your humble servant, W. Pauli.”