It was a long straight staircase that led from the lobby to the office. Entering the office, the first thing I saw was a hat rack. On the sweatband of the rack’s single felt hat was printed in bold letters: PROF. W. PAULI, BERGSTRASSE 35, ZOLLIKON. Then I noticed its owner at the desk. He had his back to me and seemed to be in the middle of a calculation. Having spotted a wrong sign in one of his equations, Pauli turned around, saying triumphantly: “Falsches Vorzeichen schleicht sich durchs Schlüsselloch ein [wrong sign is sneaking in through the keyhole].” See figure 1.
He asked me whether I knew the quotation. When I said I didn’t, he pulled from one of the drawers his copy of the famous Copenhagen parody of Goethe’s Faust, instigated by Max Delbrück and illustrated with George Gamow’s ingenious drawings. In this 1932 performance...
