Comment on lab toys

RobotToaster@mander.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

See also, the Pauli effect: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pauli_effect

Since the 20th century, the work in some subfields of physics research has been divided between theorists and experimentalists. Those theorists who lack an aptitude or interest in experimental work have on occasion earned a reputation for accidentally breaking experimental equipment. Pauli was exceptional in this regard: it was postulated that he was such a good theorist that any experiments would be compromised by virtue of his presence in the vicinity. For fear of the Pauli effect, experimental physicist Otto Stern banned Pauli from his laboratory located in Hamburg despite their friendship.

An incident occurred in the physics laboratory at the University of Göttingen. An expensive measuring device, for no apparent reason, suddenly stopped working, although Pauli was in fact absent. James Franck, the director of the institute, reported the incident to his colleague Pauli in Zürich with the humorous remark that at least this time Pauli was innocent. However, it turned out that Pauli had been on a railway journey to Zürich and had switched trains in the Göttingen rail station at about the time of the failure.

R. Peierls describes a case when at one reception this effect was to be parodied by deliberately crashing a chandelier upon Pauli’s entrance. The chandelier was suspended on a rope to be released, but it stuck instead, thus becoming a real example of the Pauli effect

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