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The offer of a professorship at the ETH Zurich |
| The chair of theoretical physics at the Federal Polytechnic (ETH)
became vacant in 1927 after Peter Debye had accepted a
lucrative offer from the University of Leipzig. After a refusal by Werner
Heisenberg, the Swiss School Council, the managing body of the ETH Zurich,
contacted Wolfgang Pauli. Pauli enquired of his colleagues in Zurich, Richard
Kuhn and Paul Scherrer, about the conditions there
before he applied officially for the post of successor to Debye. The School
Council discussed the matter on 17th December 1927 and applied to the Federal
Council (the Swiss Government) for the election of Pauli, which was confirmed
on 10th Januar 1928. |
Zürich with the university quarters at 1925 |
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Paul Scherrer and Wolfgang Pauli
© CERN, Geneva |
Pauli's decision to come to the ETH was influenced to a large
extent by the fruitful environment that awaited him in Zurich. As well as the
young experimental physicist Paul Scherrer, Hermann Weyl was also working at
the ETH Zurich. At the neighbouring university Gregor
Wentzel, another of Sommerfeld's students and a representative of the
emerging nuclear physics, took up his post as Erwin
Schrödingers successor at the same time as Pauli. After settlement of
a disagreement with School Council President Arthur Rohn about an assistant's
salary, Pauli accepted his election on 2nd February 1928. |
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| Thanks to fruitful collaboration between the physicists at the
ETH and the university, Zurich gained in the 1920's the reputation of an
important centre for modern physics. At the ETH the experimental physicist Paul
Scherrer and the theoretician Wolfgang Pauli complemented one another in an
ideal manner. Pauli was able to work for the most part freed from
administrative duties which the institute director Scherrer took off his
shoulders. For the latter Pauli was for all his life "his Pauli", the younger,
more famous friend and colleague. While Pauli distinguished himself above all
on international terrain, Scherrer shaped and promoted physics in Switzerland.
In particular, as an outstanding teacher he had a way of firing his students
with enthusiasm. |
Paul Scherrer during a lecture in a lecture hall of the Institute
© ETH-Bibliothek |
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| Together the two organised several international congresses in
Zurich, the "Physics Weeks": in 1929, 1931, 1933 and 1936 the leading European
and American physicists met to discuss the physics of x-ray radiation, nuclear
physics or very low temperature physics. |
The physical institute of the ETHZ
© ETH-Bibliothek |
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