The extraordinary story of psychoanalyst Carl Jung and physicist Wolfgang Pauli and their struggle to quantify the unconscious. In 1932, the groundbreaking physicist Wolfgang Pauli met the famous psychoanalyst Carl Jung. Pauli was fascinated by the inner reaches of his own psyche and not afraid to dabble in the occult, while Jung looked to science for answers to the psychological questions that tormented him. Their rich friendship led them, in Jung’s words, into “the no-man’s land between physics and the psychology of the unconscious . . . the most fascinating yet the darkest hunting ground of our times.” Both were obsessed with the far-reaching significance of the number “137”—a primal number that seemed to hint at the origins of the universe itself. Their quest to solve its enigma led them on a lifelong journey into the ancient secrets of alchemy, the work of Johannes Kepler, and the Chinese Book of Changes. This is the captivating story of an extraordinary and fruitful collaboration between two of the greatest thinkers of the twentieth century.

"The history is fascinating, as are the insights into the personalities of these great thinkers." —New Scientist Is there a number at the root of the universe? A primal number that everything in the world hinges on? This question exercised many great minds of the twentieth century, among them the groundbreaking physicist Wolfgang Pauli and the famous psychoanalyst Carl Jung. Their obsession with the power of certain numbers—including 137, which describes the atom’s fine-structure constant and has great Kabbalistic significance—led them to develop an unlikely friendship and to embark on a joint mystical quest reaching deep into medieval alchemy, dream interpretation, and the Chinese Book of Changes. 137 explores the profound intersection of modern science with the occult, but above all it is the tale of an extraordinary, fruitful friendship between two of the greatest thinkers of our times. Originally published in hardcover as Deciphering the Cosmic Number.

Mit dem Druck von Wolfgang Paulis Briefwechsel aus seinen letzten beiden Lebensjahren wird eine großangelegte Edition der gesamten wissenschaftlichen Korrespondenz eines der bedeutendsten theoretischen Physiker des 20. Jahrhunderts abgeschlossen, der an der Entwicklung der wichtigsten physikalischen Ideen und Theorien, insbesondere an der Relativitätstheorie und Quantentheorie sowie deren weiteren Ausbau zu einer Feld- und Elementarteilchentheorie, teilgenommen hat. Der vorliegende besonders umfangreiche Band mit 711 Briefen behandelt die durch Wu, Telegdi, Lederman u.a. bei den schwachen Wechselwirkungen beobachtete Paritätsverletzung, bei der das einst von Pauli postulierte Neutrino eine herausragende Rolle spielt und die in der Theorie der Elementarteilchen einen allgemeinen Umschwung einleitete. Neue Einblicke vermittelt der Briefwechsel in die enge Zusammenarbeit von Pauli und Heisenberg anlässlich einer damals entwickelten einheitlichen Feldtheorie der Elementarteilchen. This volume of the letters Wolfgang Pauli wrote during the final two years of his life completes the publication of the entire scientific correspondence of one of the most important theoretical physicists of the 20th century. Pauli played a vital role in the development of the most important physical ideas and theories of his time: relativity and quantum mechanics, in particular, and also in their extension to elementary particle field theory. This especially extensive volume covers more than 700 letters between Pauli and scientists such as Wu, Telegdi, Lederman and others, in which he discussed parity violation observed under the weak interaction in which the neutrino (first postulated by Pauli) plays a crucial role. The letters also provide new insights into the close cooperation between Pauli and Heisenberg on their work on the unified field theory of elementary particles, which was being developed at that time.

Das vorliegende Werk enth{lt wichtiges Quellenmaterial zur Geschichte der Elementarteilchen- und Quantenfeldtheorie aus den 40er Jahren. Die Briefe sind chronologisch eingeordnet und kommentiert. Umfangreiche Verzeichnisse erleichtern den Zugang zu dem reichhaltigen Informationsmaterial, das die Sch|pfer dieser Disziplin w{hrend ihrer Entstehungsperiode miteinander austauschten. F}r jeden, der sich ernsthaft mit der Geschichte der modernen Physik auseinandersetzen will, eine unumg{ngliches Standardwerk.

Permeated by the author's delightful humor, this little book explains, with nearly no mathematics, the main conceptual issues associated with quantum mechanics: The issue of determinism. Does quantum mechanics signify the end of a deterministic word-view? The role of the human subject or of the "observer" in science. Since Copernicus, science has increasingly tended to dethrone Man from his formerly held special position in the Universe. But quantum mechanics, with its emphasis on the notion of observation, may once more have given a central role to the human subject. The issue of locality. Does quantum mechanics imply that instantaneous actions at a distance exist in Nature? In these pages the author offers a variety of views and answers - bad as well as good - to these questions. The reader will be both entertained and enlightened by Jean Bricmont's clear and incisive arguments.