PAULI, WOLFGANG. - ANNOUNCING THE "EXCLUSION PRINCIPLE"

Über den Zusammenhang des Abschlusses der Elektronengruppen im Atom mit der Komplexstruktur der Spektrum. (On the Connexion between the Completion of Electron Groups in an Atom with the Complex Structure of Spectra).

Berlin, Julius Springer, 1925.

8vo. Contemp. full cloth. Spine lacks and covers detached (in need of a new spine). A stamp to front free endpaper (chinese). In: 'Zeitschrift für Physik', Volume 31. VIII,952 pp., textillustr. (Entire volume offered). Pauli's paper: pp.765-783.

First edition of the first announcement of Pauli's Exclusion Principle which gives a criterion for the electronic structure of atoms, and explains the periodic table and the combining properties of the elements.

Pauli first formulated his exclusion principle in this article in an attempt to explain the structure of the periodic table. By introducing an additional quantum number, namely the spin of an electron, to the already known three quantum numbers in Bohr's atom model, and by postulating that no two electrons can have the same four quantum numbers, Pauli could explain the number of electrons allowed in the outermost shell, e.g., explaining the varying lengths of successive periods in the table. The exclusion principle turned out to be applicable to all fermions, and thus plays a role in a variety of physical phenomena. For example it explains the formation of degenerate matter in white dwarfs and neutron stars. In 1945 Pauli received the Nobel Prize in physics "for the discovery of the Exclusion Principle, also called the Pauli Principle".

This volume also contains a paper by Heisenberg: 'Über eine Anwendung des Korrespondenzprinzips auf die Frage der Polarisation des Floureszenzlichtes' , A. Einstein: "Bemerkung zu P. Jordans Abhandlung "Zur Theorie der Quantenstrahlung"and another paper by Pauli: 'Über den Einfluss der Geschwindigkeitsabhängigkeit der Elektronenmasse auf den Zeemaneffekt' (Zeeman-Effect and the Dependence of Electron-Mass on the Velocity).

Order-nr.: 47224