Shebang:
Wolfgang Pauli.
Pais: [A smile]
Shebang: We haven't talked about him. You write so well about him, about his science, his personality, and his fascination with psychology and his connection with Jung.
Pais: We had big fights, Pauli and I, because I am anti-Jung, and pro-Freud, and he was just the other way around. So in 1950 I visited Pauli for a week, stayed in his home, and he gave me a book. And the book is one of the volumes of Jung's Collected Works. And it says '...Seinem jungen Freund Pais, als Gegenwicht gegen Freud'. ... To his young friend Pais, as a counterweight to Freud.
Shebang: Do you mind explaining why you're anti-Jung and pro-Freud?
Pais: Because I think Jung is a fraud. Jung is a charlatan. He makes assumptions that cannot be proved. The thing about Freud is, I don't think Freud is right. But Freud has a scientific style. He says, 'Here are my assumptions. This is what I deduced from my assumptions'. That's what I like about Freud and Jung is not that way. I read most of Freud when I was about twenty. Then I said, 'Now I must read Jung'. I had to give up. Then I read a little Adler, which I didn't like much either.
Shebang: And Pauli, a certain amount has been made of this interest in psychology and also the fact that he liked a drink -
Pais: His first marriage was a disaster, and that lasted only a year, and then he got into heavy drinking and he was advised to get psychiatric help.
And he went to see Jung, and Jung said, 'Talk to my assistant', and the assistant says, 'Why don't you write down your dreams'. Pauli said, 'I will.'
Pauli came back a year later. Stack like this. The assistant looked at it, and went to Jung, and said, 'You've got to read this stuff. It's unbelievable, full of mandalas and God knows what. The number 4 played a great role in Pauli's subconscious, too. And then they began to write to each other, and the correspondence lasted until a month before Pauli died, and the correspondence has been collected in a book. Pauli was deep into Jung, deep into Jung.
Shebang: After some years at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, you decided not to stay there in the end.
Pais: No, right.
Shebang: But you had been very happy there.
Pais: I grew there, I'd made in some ways my career there, I did my best scientific work there. But, you know, Princeton is...One of my colleagues said, 'Ah Princeton, where science flourishes and never bears fruit'. [LAUGHTER] I was at Princeton from 1946 to 1963. I visited a friend and ex-teacher at Rockefeller and thought, 'Gee, maybe this is the place for me'. But I travel, as you can see. I am deeply committed to being an American citizen - which I became - and deeply committed to being a European. It's a wonderful combination.
Shebang: You've written very touchingly about your professor, your teacher, and how you saw him later.
Pais: Uhlenbeck. Yes, he was a wonderful man. I have known many great men in science, and he was one of them, but none was a better teacher. He had this quiet... He compelled you to listen. You see I am just an ordinary guy. When I sit down in a lecture hall my mind flies out of the window. Most of the time. But when Uhlenbeck talked there was something quiet and compelling about it. I listened. I had to. I don't know how. But that was his great gift.
Shebang: You've also written, we think, wonderfully about Ehrenfest who also had this great reputation as a teacher.
Pais: Ja There was Boltzmann who had a student called Ehrenfest. There was Ehrenfest who had a student called Uhlenbeck. There was Uhlenbeck who had a student called Pais. So I am the great grandson of Boltzmann.
Shebang: Of Boltzmann.
Pais:Yes.
Shebang: Your writing, you tell other people's stories -
Pais: Well I did write my autobiography.
Shebang: Yes, but you are such a selfless person, you talk about the others -
Pais: Well, I don't think I'm all that important. I had a story to tell, a story which is not all that uninteresting, but I don't go into my own deeper depths, perhaps.
Shebang: Do you have plans for what you will write next?
Pais: I will try to do something else, but this last one [this book] has just come out a couple of months ago, so I need a little time to sit down and meditate.
Shebang: And we're going to leave you to have that time. This has been a treat -
Pais: I thank you
Shebang: Thank you so much.
Pais: It is a pleasure to listen and talk and it was very nice.
Pais: [A smile]
Shebang: We haven't talked about him. You write so well about him, about his science, his personality, and his fascination with psychology and his connection with Jung.
Pais: We had big fights, Pauli and I, because I am anti-Jung, and pro-Freud, and he was just the other way around. So in 1950 I visited Pauli for a week, stayed in his home, and he gave me a book. And the book is one of the volumes of Jung's Collected Works. And it says '...Seinem jungen Freund Pais, als Gegenwicht gegen Freud'. ... To his young friend Pais, as a counterweight to Freud.
Shebang: Do you mind explaining why you're anti-Jung and pro-Freud?
Pais: Because I think Jung is a fraud. Jung is a charlatan. He makes assumptions that cannot be proved. The thing about Freud is, I don't think Freud is right. But Freud has a scientific style. He says, 'Here are my assumptions. This is what I deduced from my assumptions'. That's what I like about Freud and Jung is not that way. I read most of Freud when I was about twenty. Then I said, 'Now I must read Jung'. I had to give up. Then I read a little Adler, which I didn't like much either.
Shebang: And Pauli, a certain amount has been made of this interest in psychology and also the fact that he liked a drink -
Pais: His first marriage was a disaster, and that lasted only a year, and then he got into heavy drinking and he was advised to get psychiatric help.
And he went to see Jung, and Jung said, 'Talk to my assistant', and the assistant says, 'Why don't you write down your dreams'. Pauli said, 'I will.'
Pauli came back a year later. Stack like this. The assistant looked at it, and went to Jung, and said, 'You've got to read this stuff. It's unbelievable, full of mandalas and God knows what. The number 4 played a great role in Pauli's subconscious, too. And then they began to write to each other, and the correspondence lasted until a month before Pauli died, and the correspondence has been collected in a book. Pauli was deep into Jung, deep into Jung.
Shebang: After some years at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, you decided not to stay there in the end.
Pais: No, right.
Shebang: But you had been very happy there.
Pais: I grew there, I'd made in some ways my career there, I did my best scientific work there. But, you know, Princeton is...One of my colleagues said, 'Ah Princeton, where science flourishes and never bears fruit'. [LAUGHTER] I was at Princeton from 1946 to 1963. I visited a friend and ex-teacher at Rockefeller and thought, 'Gee, maybe this is the place for me'. But I travel, as you can see. I am deeply committed to being an American citizen - which I became - and deeply committed to being a European. It's a wonderful combination.
Shebang: You've written very touchingly about your professor, your teacher, and how you saw him later.
Pais: Uhlenbeck. Yes, he was a wonderful man. I have known many great men in science, and he was one of them, but none was a better teacher. He had this quiet... He compelled you to listen. You see I am just an ordinary guy. When I sit down in a lecture hall my mind flies out of the window. Most of the time. But when Uhlenbeck talked there was something quiet and compelling about it. I listened. I had to. I don't know how. But that was his great gift.
Shebang: You've also written, we think, wonderfully about Ehrenfest who also had this great reputation as a teacher.
Pais: Ja There was Boltzmann who had a student called Ehrenfest. There was Ehrenfest who had a student called Uhlenbeck. There was Uhlenbeck who had a student called Pais. So I am the great grandson of Boltzmann.
Shebang: Of Boltzmann.
Pais:Yes.
Shebang: Your writing, you tell other people's stories -
Pais: Well I did write my autobiography.
Shebang: Yes, but you are such a selfless person, you talk about the others -
Pais: Well, I don't think I'm all that important. I had a story to tell, a story which is not all that uninteresting, but I don't go into my own deeper depths, perhaps.
Shebang: Do you have plans for what you will write next?
Pais: I will try to do something else, but this last one [this book] has just come out a couple of months ago, so I need a little time to sit down and meditate.
Shebang: And we're going to leave you to have that time. This has been a treat -
Pais: I thank you
Shebang: Thank you so much.
Pais: It is a pleasure to listen and talk and it was very nice.
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