137 - Arthur I. Miller [17]
Pauli was determined to pursue a career in physics, but as far as he could see Vienna was an intellectual desert, devoid of famous physicists. He decided to move to Munich, where the physicist Arnold Sommerfeld—a pioneer in the exciting field of quantum physics—was holding court.
According to one account, Pauli had already met Sommerfeld when he was a boy of twelve. The occasion was a lecture Sommerfeld was giving in Vienna and Pauli’s father obtained permission for his son to attend. Afterward Sommerfeld sought out the youngster and asked whether he had understood the lecture. Pauli replied that he had, except for one equation on the upper left-hand side of the blackboard. Sommerfeld looked up and replied, startled, “There I have indeed made a mistake.” True or not, the story attests to young Wolfgang’s reputation.
Pauli in Munich
The young man who arrived in Munich in October 1918 was a sensitive-looking eighteen-year-old with hooded eyes, full lips, and a rather sullen look to his face. He wore his dark wavy hair combed back. He was not particularly tall, about five foot five, but he carried himself with an air of confidence.
Munich was a city in chaos. Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Turkey were on the verge of defeat and Allied armies—the Americans, English, and French—were poised to invade Bavaria (Munich was its capital city). The Allied blockade, exacerbated by two successive years of crop failures in the region, had resulted in starvation conditions. In 1917, in response to the huge losses of worker-soldiers, a radical minority of Socialists claimed that they had been double-crossed by imperialist capitalists. Inspired by the successful Russian revolution that same year, they agitated for a German Bolshevik revolution and the establishment of a Soviet-style Republic.
On November 7, 1918, a month after Pauli arrived, the Socialists organized a massive peace demonstration that was attended by over 50,000 people. With his strong socialist leanings, shaped by his mother’s politics, Pauli undoubtedly sympathized and perhaps even joined in.
The Socialists demanded the abdication of the Bavarian King, Ludwig III, and proclaimed a Soviet Republic. Armed soldiers and civilians occupied key points in the city. Informed of all this, the king calmly packed his family into his new Mercedes and drove away. Despite its name, the Soviet Republic was a liberal regime and enjoyed widespread support.
Arriving in this chaotic city, Pauli found lodgings near the university at Theresienstrasse 66. Some of the buildings on this broad tree-lined avenue still stand and have been returned to their original condition. Like them, number 66 was probably in the classical style, built of earth colored bricks, and four floors with large windows curved at the top. Pauli’s apartment was on the second floor, facing a courtyard at the back, which made the rent somewhat cheaper.
Turning left, Pauli would have strolled along Theresienstrasse and turned left again onto the Ludwigstrasse, a long straight boulevard, built in 1817 at the behest of King Ludwig I to reflect his love of Italy. Designed by an Italian architect, it resembles Rome’s magnificent Via de Corso. Another few steps would have brought him to the university. Crossing the boulevard he would reach the main entrance with its piazza and massive fountain. Now, as then, students congregate there.
Arnold Sommerfeld, Pauli’s new mentor, had studied at the University of Königsberg and immediately afterward had been called up for military service. Unlike his fellow academics, he revelled in it and ever after sported a magnificent turned-up waxed mustache, which more than made up for his short, squat build.
Sommerfeld, about 1916, shortly before Pauli came to study with him.
Pauli had come to sit at his feet. But after a brief conversation, Sommerfeld concluded that he had little to teach the young man. “I have with me a really astonishing specimen of the intellectual