137 - Arthur I. Miller [135]
Pauli’s ashes were interred in the graveyard in the town where he had lived, Zollikon, between Zürich, where the ETH is, and Küsnacht, where he used to visit Jung in his Gothic mansion—the two places that defined his two worlds of physics and psychology.
Franca was curious about the story Enz told about room 137. Pauli had never said a word to her about this mysterious number. Enz assured her that he was repeating “Pauli’s own words.” He told her about the significance of the number in physics and that Pauli had mentioned it many times.
Franca wrote a letter to Abdus Salam, a physicist whom Pauli had greatly respected, asking whether it was he who had written “an article connected with the subject Pauli and the number 137.” She added, “it is a strange fact that Wolfgang Pauli actually died in the room Nr. 137.” People thought that Pauli had requested that room, she said. In fact he had originally been in another room and was transferred to room 137 without being told where he was being sent.
It was Salam, in fact, who originated the story of Pauli going to heaven and asking the Lord to explain “Why 137?” That had been in 1957, the year before Pauli’s death. Salam wrote to Franca, “of course it is a story which I would not repeat now.” He sent her a copy of his lecture in which the story appeared.
Franca replied, “At last I got a written, beautiful explanation of this to me so elusive Number 137. I enjoyed the end of the story—I did not know—‘convincing the Lord a mistake had been made.’ One could not characterize Pauli better in so few words!”
FRANCA died in 1987. She spent the three decades after her husband’s death finding suitable places for his books, personal papers, and correspondence. She also did her best to delay the publication of his correspondence with Jung. To the end Franca believed that it would detract from his image as a serious scientist.
Epilogue: The Legacy of Pauli and Jung
PAULI AND JUNG were men who thought outside the box. Pauli made three discoveries that changed the course of science and our understanding of the world: the exclusion principle, the neutrino, and CPT symmetry. Jung pioneered a different way to explore the mind, by opening up psychoanalysis to include alchemy, mysticism, and Far Eastern religions.
Today Pauli is remembered for the exclusion principle and the Pauli legend—as the man who loved to terrorize physicists. He’s also remembered, of course, for his extraordinary effect on mechanical instruments. In 2000 the magazine Physics World asked scientists to vote for the top-ten physicists of the twentieth century. Pauli did not receive a single vote and was not even mentioned. Yet, beside his three major discoveries, his discussions with and suggestions to Heisenberg (who, of course, was high on the list) were invaluable to Heisenberg in achieving his breakthroughs, as were Pauli’s critical evaluations of the work of others. Pauli was involved in some of the greatest advances in twentieth-century physics, but, as we have seen, he couldn’t be bothered to step forward and claim the credit. He was more interested in pressing on with his work, in pushing forward the borders of science.
As for Jung, although his name is widely known to psychoanalysts and