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Physicists were convinced Wolfgang Pauli presence broke lab equipment

Ellsworth Toohey
Jul 30, 2026
∙ Paid
Pauli effect — Unknown authorUnknown author / CC BY 4.0 (via Wikipedia)
Pauli effect — Unknown authorUnknown author / CC BY 4.0 (via Wikipedia)

Wolfgang Pauli has a real law of physics named after him, the exclusion principle. Colleagues named a second one after him as a joke, "according to which a functioning device and Wolfgang Pauli may not occupy the same room." The Pauli effect was the reputation he built for making lab…

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