Das ist Ganz Falsch !
While reading another Scientific American article, I ran across someone I‘d never heard of. Nothing surprising about that. There’s not much in Scientific American that I have heard of. Anyway, the author mentioned the “Pauli Proverb” and I thought it might help to know who Pauli was.
So I did what anybody would do and I surfed right over to Wikipedia. I have a confession to make here. I’m addicted to Wikipedia. When I was a kid, my parents bought a set of World Book Encyclopedias just like millions of parents have done over the years. If I couldn’t get outside to play, I’d read them. I wouldn’t go look something up, mind you. I’d start at A and read. I would pick up the “T” Encyclopedia and read about “T” (the 20th letter in the alphabet) and then move right on to Tabasco, Tabby and Tabernacle. Wikipedia is like it’s custom made for me. I can get lost there for hours.
Anyway, back to Pauli. Wolfgang Pauli was a German physicist. He was even called the “conscience of physics.” To tell the truth, it sounds like he was a pain in the posterior. He was a severe critic of any scientific work that he found lacking, dismissing it as “ganz falsch” -- utterly false. But his harshest criticism (and what tickled my fancy about the article) was, “This isn’t right. It’s not even wrong.”
I really wish I had known that line back when I worked for the FAA. It would have come in handy -- many times. You might want to read the article for yourself. Wronger Than Wrong by Michael Shermer. It might have something in it you can use.
Don Brown
February 11, 2007
So I did what anybody would do and I surfed right over to Wikipedia. I have a confession to make here. I’m addicted to Wikipedia. When I was a kid, my parents bought a set of World Book Encyclopedias just like millions of parents have done over the years. If I couldn’t get outside to play, I’d read them. I wouldn’t go look something up, mind you. I’d start at A and read. I would pick up the “T” Encyclopedia and read about “T” (the 20th letter in the alphabet) and then move right on to Tabasco, Tabby and Tabernacle. Wikipedia is like it’s custom made for me. I can get lost there for hours.
Anyway, back to Pauli. Wolfgang Pauli was a German physicist. He was even called the “conscience of physics.” To tell the truth, it sounds like he was a pain in the posterior. He was a severe critic of any scientific work that he found lacking, dismissing it as “ganz falsch” -- utterly false. But his harshest criticism (and what tickled my fancy about the article) was, “This isn’t right. It’s not even wrong.”
I really wish I had known that line back when I worked for the FAA. It would have come in handy -- many times. You might want to read the article for yourself. Wronger Than Wrong by Michael Shermer. It might have something in it you can use.
Don Brown
February 11, 2007
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