Shebang:
So many great brains were at the Institute at the same time -
Pais: Which Institute?
Shebang: The Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton.
Pais: Ja-Ja
Shebang: Well, we mean this Institute as well! [The interview took place at The Niels Bohr Institute, once called the Institute for Theoretical Physics in Copenhagen.
Pais: Ja-Ja, yes, the Institute in Princeton was really, in my days it was just heaven.
Shebang: And you have written about going on walks with Gödel and Einstein - ? [Gödel was a mathematician and logician, see the feature from last month's Shebang in the archives]
Pais: Gödeland Einstein, Ja
Shebang: You see the picture we get - forgive us but -
Pais: No, please -
Shebang: We get these notions of these personalities like Bohr, like Einstein, whom we never met, and we try and characterise them, we try and find out what they were like...So, you know, the picture we have of Gödelis that he was this very reclusive, very quiet person.
Pais: And bizarre.
Shebang: Yes.
Pais: Utterly bizarre. Utterly bizarre person...You know, I'll tell you a story about Gödel, which I know from Einstein. [Coincidentally this anecdote appeared in the feature about Gödel in last month's issue of Shebang] Gödel was applying to become an American citizen, and, being Gödel, he studied carefully: the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the history - you have to. So one day he knocks at Einstein's door. And Einstein says 'Come in', what is the matter, Gödel?' 'I can't become a citizen.' 'Why can you not become a citizen?' 'Because I found an inconsistency in the Bill of Rights!' [SHRUGS, LAUGHTER] [[LAUGHTER]. I mean Gödel was absolutely bizarre.
Shebang: And his wife - ?
Pais: She was a very kind, loving woman. A good woman to him. 'Kurtele', she called. 'Kurtele'. She was a Viennese ballet dancer... And she was devoted to him. Took care of him. He was also meschugge, you know, Godel. ['Meschugge' is New York slang, Yiddish and German for 'crazy'] I mean, one day he decided that 'they' were trying to poison him. So he had a moat dug around his house. No, I mean, Gödel, really was one of the strangest men I have known.
Shebang: Photographs make his wife look rather beautiful -
Pais: A pleasant-looking woman, a charming looking woman. But not well treated by the snobs of Princeton.
Shebang: Right. The next person. This is such a treat to us, so -
Pais: Go ahead!
Shebang: Well, John von Neumann, you have written an enchanting -
Pais: Oh, Johnny! Ja
Shebang: You know the relationship that you had.
Pais: Yes.
Shebang: The jokes that you told.
Pais: Yes.
Shebang: The limericks.
Pais: Ja [LAUGHTER] Yes.
Shebang: In a way he helped you with your work -
Pais: Yes, he did. There was one time I was stuck on a problem. It had some mathematical complexity to it. And I said, 'I'll go and talk to Johnny, and I said, 'Johnny, this is my problem.' And Johnny said, 'I don't know, I'll think about this.' And then he had to go to Los Alamos. In the meantime I found my own answer, I solved the problem. But a week later, I got a twelve page letter from Johnny in Los Alamos - which I still have - in which he gave his solution, which is also correct of course. So you know he would take such questions seriously. And there were not many mathematicians who could understand a physicist's way of solving problems like that. Mathematicians go for absolute rigour and axiomatic purity and all that sort of stuff. And that is not the way physicists treat mathematics. I think physicists treat mathematics with the utmost respect. But as my friend Kramers used to say, 'To physicists mathematics is like a woman you can only love from a distance.' Pure mathematics is ...is very beautiful. But we are not pure in that sense. I think we are pure enough! And we have great respect for pure mathematics.
But, you know, if we can...finesse our way through, that's good enough for us.
Shebang: Would there be exceptions, though, would you say that someone like Dirac, or Schwinger-?
Pais: No, Dirac said himself that it was very important that he got his training as an engineer, because that taught him that you can make approximations, which mathematicians don't like to do. And he said that was very important in his own work... So, yes, Dirac was of course more pure than most physicists. But his was not a mathematical purity, no. No. Not quite.
Shebang: And Edward Witten. Have you - [Edward Witten is a highly regarded physicist, at present at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton]
Pais: Yes! I know Eddie. Yes. My wife calls him The Martian. [GUILTY LAUGHTER]
Shebang: She's not the only one.
Pais: No. And I know his wife, too, Chiara. No, he's a very sweet fellow, actually. And he is extremely gifted. Also in mathematics. And the trouble with these people is that they don't live at a time that you get Nobel Prizes, you know. There is nothing to get Nobel Prizes for, any more Shebang: In other words, you only get a Nobel Prize once something's been proved, a theory's been established - ?
Pais: Well, I mean it depends, but you must understand that in the beginning of the [twentieth] century, the gold was lying right below the surface. And that was the wonderful thing. It is certain that there are many things we don't know. Many important things we don't know. But there are no experimental hints we have to go on. When Bohr did his work on atomic spectra there was a five volume book - it's five volumes - which did nothing but tabulate one spectrum after another spectrum - none of which was understood. So the material, the experimental material was lying there.
Shebang: And now it is much more difficult -
Pais: It is more difficult. In my area of physics, which as you know is the structure of matter, there are lots of wonderful things going on in physics at the moment. Other areas.. But still, it is difficult.
Pais: Which Institute?
Shebang: The Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton.
Pais: Ja-Ja
Shebang: Well, we mean this Institute as well! [The interview took place at The Niels Bohr Institute, once called the Institute for Theoretical Physics in Copenhagen.
Pais: Ja-Ja, yes, the Institute in Princeton was really, in my days it was just heaven.
Shebang: And you have written about going on walks with Gödel and Einstein - ? [Gödel was a mathematician and logician, see the feature from last month's Shebang in the archives]
Pais: Gödeland Einstein, Ja
Shebang: You see the picture we get - forgive us but -
Pais: No, please -
Shebang: We get these notions of these personalities like Bohr, like Einstein, whom we never met, and we try and characterise them, we try and find out what they were like...So, you know, the picture we have of Gödelis that he was this very reclusive, very quiet person.
Pais: And bizarre.
Shebang: Yes.
Pais: Utterly bizarre. Utterly bizarre person...You know, I'll tell you a story about Gödel, which I know from Einstein. [Coincidentally this anecdote appeared in the feature about Gödel in last month's issue of Shebang] Gödel was applying to become an American citizen, and, being Gödel, he studied carefully: the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the history - you have to. So one day he knocks at Einstein's door. And Einstein says 'Come in', what is the matter, Gödel?' 'I can't become a citizen.' 'Why can you not become a citizen?' 'Because I found an inconsistency in the Bill of Rights!' [SHRUGS, LAUGHTER] [[LAUGHTER]. I mean Gödel was absolutely bizarre.
Shebang: And his wife - ?
Pais: She was a very kind, loving woman. A good woman to him. 'Kurtele', she called. 'Kurtele'. She was a Viennese ballet dancer... And she was devoted to him. Took care of him. He was also meschugge, you know, Godel. ['Meschugge' is New York slang, Yiddish and German for 'crazy'] I mean, one day he decided that 'they' were trying to poison him. So he had a moat dug around his house. No, I mean, Gödel, really was one of the strangest men I have known.
Shebang: Photographs make his wife look rather beautiful -
Pais: A pleasant-looking woman, a charming looking woman. But not well treated by the snobs of Princeton.
Shebang: Right. The next person. This is such a treat to us, so -
Pais: Go ahead!
Shebang: Well, John von Neumann, you have written an enchanting -
Pais: Oh, Johnny! Ja
Shebang: You know the relationship that you had.
Pais: Yes.
Shebang: The jokes that you told.
Pais: Yes.
Shebang: The limericks.
Pais: Ja [LAUGHTER] Yes.
Shebang: In a way he helped you with your work -
Pais: Yes, he did. There was one time I was stuck on a problem. It had some mathematical complexity to it. And I said, 'I'll go and talk to Johnny, and I said, 'Johnny, this is my problem.' And Johnny said, 'I don't know, I'll think about this.' And then he had to go to Los Alamos. In the meantime I found my own answer, I solved the problem. But a week later, I got a twelve page letter from Johnny in Los Alamos - which I still have - in which he gave his solution, which is also correct of course. So you know he would take such questions seriously. And there were not many mathematicians who could understand a physicist's way of solving problems like that. Mathematicians go for absolute rigour and axiomatic purity and all that sort of stuff. And that is not the way physicists treat mathematics. I think physicists treat mathematics with the utmost respect. But as my friend Kramers used to say, 'To physicists mathematics is like a woman you can only love from a distance.' Pure mathematics is ...is very beautiful. But we are not pure in that sense. I think we are pure enough! And we have great respect for pure mathematics.
But, you know, if we can...finesse our way through, that's good enough for us.
Shebang: Would there be exceptions, though, would you say that someone like Dirac, or Schwinger-?
Pais: No, Dirac said himself that it was very important that he got his training as an engineer, because that taught him that you can make approximations, which mathematicians don't like to do. And he said that was very important in his own work... So, yes, Dirac was of course more pure than most physicists. But his was not a mathematical purity, no. No. Not quite.
Shebang: And Edward Witten. Have you - [Edward Witten is a highly regarded physicist, at present at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton]
Pais: Yes! I know Eddie. Yes. My wife calls him The Martian. [GUILTY LAUGHTER]
Shebang: She's not the only one.
Pais: No. And I know his wife, too, Chiara. No, he's a very sweet fellow, actually. And he is extremely gifted. Also in mathematics. And the trouble with these people is that they don't live at a time that you get Nobel Prizes, you know. There is nothing to get Nobel Prizes for, any more Shebang: In other words, you only get a Nobel Prize once something's been proved, a theory's been established - ?
Pais: Well, I mean it depends, but you must understand that in the beginning of the [twentieth] century, the gold was lying right below the surface. And that was the wonderful thing. It is certain that there are many things we don't know. Many important things we don't know. But there are no experimental hints we have to go on. When Bohr did his work on atomic spectra there was a five volume book - it's five volumes - which did nothing but tabulate one spectrum after another spectrum - none of which was understood. So the material, the experimental material was lying there.
Shebang: And now it is much more difficult -
Pais: It is more difficult. In my area of physics, which as you know is the structure of matter, there are lots of wonderful things going on in physics at the moment. Other areas.. But still, it is difficult.
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