On Kamefuchi's Essay about Heisenberg and Yukawa (3)

References [9, 10, 11] of this article

2 Heisenberg's tragedy (continued)

2.5 Reasons for Pauli's Rebellion

Kamefuchi writes, "Pauli was a close friend of Heisenberg's since student days and coworker of this problem until three months ago. Why did he go on such outrage in a place where prominent researchers in particle physics lined up?"

Here are the words "three months ago." These probably come from the fact that Pauli had been to the United States for three months before this international conference. However, Pauli departed for the United States, according to Heisenberg's autobiography [8], a week plus a few weeks after Christmas 1957, namely around late January 1958. Thus, the duration from this time of departure to the international conference should be about five months.

Kamefuchi then provides an answer to the above question of his own by quoting the explanation (the part in the quotation marks below) given to him later by Professor K. Broiler (at the University of Bonn) and attaching a little suspicious comment.

"In the United States, Pauli perhaps proudly spoke about their research but got strong objections from young American geniuses to come to think that it was a difficult job. Thus, he would have wanted openly to express to the excellent people at the conference that he no longer believed in their own theory." This seems to mean that Pauli sacrificed his friend's honor for his own ...

Broiler's explanation is a presumption, but there is a document [9] (this reference is academic, unlike Polkinghorne's book, and the following quote is in a footnote) that assertively states a similar thing as follows.

Although Pauli drafted the first preprint, entitled 'On the Isospin Group in the Theory of the Elementary Particles,' he withdrew from further collaboration in January 1958, after he encountered severe criticism and opposition to the theory from the U.S. physicists at the American Physical society meeting in New York; thus Heisenberg was left to work out the details of the theory with younger collaborators (Dürr et al., 1959). ([9] p. 1120)

The reference "Dürr et al., 1959" at the end of the above quote looks like the source of this entire description but is not such. It is the paper (also mentioned in the previous part of the present series as Ref. [8]) of the result of Heisenberg's continued research with young collaborators. Thus, the quote does not specify the source that Pauli received severe criticism from the U.S. physicists. However, it hints that the time of Pauli's decision to withdraw from the joint research with Heisenberg was early in the period of his visit to the United States."

By the way, there was an important person who severely criticized Pauli's lecture in the United States besides American physicists. In a collection of essays [10] by Freeman Dyson, an American theoretical physicist and mathematician born in England, we find this description:

Pauli happened to be passing through New York, and was prevailed upon to give a lecture explaining the new idea [of Heisenberg and Pauli] to an audience that included Niels Bohr, who had been mentor to both Heisenberg and Pauli [...]. Pauli spoke for an hour, and then there was a general discussion during which he was criticized sharply by the younger generation. Finally, Bohr was called on to make a speech summing up the argument. "We are all agreed," he said, "that your theory is crazy. The question which divides us is whether it is crazy enough to have a chance of being correct. My own feeling is that it is not crazy enough." ([10] pp. 105-106)

The statement here that Pauli "was criticized sharply by the younger generation" underscores Broiler's presumption as well as the description in Ref. [9]. Moreover, Pauli's teacher, Niels Bohr, criticized Pauli. It is a little difficult to understand that Bohr's words, "Not crazy enough," are a harsh criticism. Dyson adds the following explanation in his next paragraph (I tried to shorten it, only finding that Dyson's text was like a polished jewel and that it was impossible to do so).

When the great innovation appears, it will almost certainly be in a muddled, incomplete, and confusing form. To the discoverer himself it will be only half-understood. To every body else it will be a mystery. For any speculation that does not at first glance look crazy, there is no hope. ([10] p. 106)

Concerning Pauli's withdrawal from the joint research with Heisenberg, the former wrote to the latter during the former's stay in the United States. This is described in Heisenberg's autobiography [11] as follows (Wolfgang in the quotation refers to Pauli):

Then we were divided by the Atlantic, and Wolfgang's letters came at greater and greater intervals. [...] Then, quite suddenly, he wrote me a somewhat brusque letter in which he informed me of his decision to withdraw from both the work and the publication [of our common project]. ([11] p. 235)

This story is in a chapter "The Unified Field Theory" of the autobiography, concluding by the following sentence:

Toward the end of 1958 I received the sad news that he [Wolfgang] had died after a sudden operation. I cannot doubt but that the beginning of his illness coincided with those unhappy days in which he lost hope in the speedy completion of our theory of elementary particles. I do not, of course, resume to judge which was the cause and which the effect. ([11] p. 236)

If you read the above statement only, you would feel sad. However, as Kamefuchi mentioned referring to the Japanese translation of Heisenberg's autobiography, there was the following facts. "A few weeks after the meeting, both of them were invited guests at a summer school in Varenna on Lake Como, Italy. Pauli was friendly to Heisenberg at that time." Also there, Pauli said to Heisenberg, "I think you are doing right to continue working on these problems. As for me, I have to drop out. ..." These give us a feeling of relief.

How important was Heisenberg's research at that time in the subsequent progress of theoretical physics? I would like to start the next part with such a story.

References

8. H. P. Dürr, W. Heisenberg, H. Mitter, S. Schlieder, and K. Yamazaki, "Zur Theorie der Elementarteilchen," Z. Naturf. 14a, 441 (1959).
9. J. Mehra and H. Rechenberg, The Historical Development of Quantum Theory, Volume 6, Part 2 (Springer, New York, 2001). [Note: I happened to have this book because I was attending the "Hideki Yukawa Study Group," once held at the Osaka Science Museum, and thought that it might be useful for discussions there.]
10. F. Dyson, From Eros to Gaia (Penguin, London, 1993; first published by Pantheon, New York, 1992). [Note: When I was still working, I recommended this book to my colleague Naoki Toyoda (currently Professor Emeritus of Tohoku University). This time I emailed him about the topics related to the present article. Then, he taught me back the presence in this book of the part quoted in the text.]
11. W. Heisenberg, Physics and Beyond: Encounters and Conversations, translated from German by A. J. Pomerans (Harper & Row, New York, 1972); original German edition, Der Teil und das Ganze: Gespräche im Umkreis der Atomphysik (R. Piper, Munich, 1969); Japanese version, Bubun to Zentai, translated by K. Yamazaki (Misuzu-Shobo, Tokyo, 1974; new edition 1999).

(To be continued)
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