Wolfgang Pauli
1900–1958, Vienna, Austria, Zurich, Switzerland
Austrian physicist who stated the exclusion principle bearing his name and predicted the existence of the neutrino.
In 1925 Pauli stated the exclusion principle: no two electrons in the same atom can have the same four quantum numbers — a principle explaining the structure of the periodic table and the properties of solid matter. In 1930, to save energy conservation in beta decay, he predicted the existence of a nearly non-interacting particle — later named the neutrino, not experimentally detected until 26 years afterward (1956).
Nobel-winning work
Pauli received the 1945 Nobel Prize in Physics 'for the discovery of the Exclusion Principle, also called the Pauli Principle'. Formulated in 1925, it states that two identical fermions (e.g., electrons) cannot occupy the same quantum state. The principle explained the electron shell structure underlying the periodic table and later anchored the fermion/boson distinction via the spin–statistics theorem.
Workplaces: ETH Zurich
Austria, Switzerland