The Scourge of God

"Soon Pauli was corresponding with leading physicists throughout Europe. His letters, signed jokingly “The Scourge of God,” were known for wit and sarcasm as well as scathing criticism. Colleagues reported that he uttered the phrase “Not only is it not right, it is not even wrong” to disparage theories that were seen to lack rigor and testable hypotheses. On one occasion, after Einstein gave a lecture on relativity in Berlin, while senior professors in the audience sat in silence wondering who should ask the first question, the brazen Pauli got up and announced, “What Professor Einstein has just said is not really as stupid as it may have sounded.” On another occasion, he made so many critical remarks about a lecture given by Paul Ehrenfest, a Dutch physicist twenty years his senior, that Ehrenfest told him, “I think I like your publications better than I like you.” Pauli snapped back, “That’s strange. My feeling about you is just the opposite.” The two became friends, and continued to try to one-up each other’s quips. Pauli’s outspoken manner did not endear him to everyone, but he earned the respect of many of his colleagues not just for his brilliance but also for his honesty and forthrightness. Many of them saw him as the “conscience of physics,” and often asked, “What does Pauli think?” when they were presented with a new idea."