Dr Faustus of Modern Physics - Department of Speech, Music and ...

174 CHAPTER 37. QUANTUM MECHANICS: BOHR
37.14 Walter Kohn NP in Chemistry 1998
• In general the many-electron wave function ψ(x1, ..., xN) for a system of
N electrons is not a legitimate scientific concept when N ≥ N0, where
N0 ≈ 10 2 − 10 3 .
37.15 Einstein
• You are the only person with whom I am actually willing to come to
terms. Almost all the other fellows do not look from the facts to the
theory but from the theory to the facts: they cannot extricate themselves
from a once accepted conceptual net, but only flop about in it in
a grotesque way. (Einstein to Schrödinger on the Copenhagen Interpretation
1935)
37.16 Pauli
• I was unable to give a logical reason for the exclusion principle or to
deduce it from more general assumptions. I had always the feeling and
I still have it today, that this is a deficiency... From the point of view
of logic, this lecture has no conclusion. (Wolfgang Pauli, Nobel Lecture
1945 On Exclusion principle and quantum mechanics)