Wolfgang Pauli introduced the Pauli exclusion principle to explain the organization of electron configurations and the closing of electron shells. In its later wave function formulation, exchanging two identical fermions reverses the sign of the joint quantum state. Putting both fermions in the same one-particle quantum state would leave the product unchanged, so antisymmetrizing gives zero. For electrons, a spatial orbital can still contain two occupants with opposite spin, because their full one-particle quantum states differ.[ref]
Exclusion principle and quantum mechanics by Wolfgang Pauli. Nobel lecture, discussion of closed shells and antisymmetric functions, printed p. 31
Portrait of Wolfgang Pauli
. Bettina Katzenstein / ETH Zürich; ETH-Bibliothek Zürich, Bildarchiv, Portr 01042. Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported, via Wikimedia Commons. Source. Articles by others on the same topic
Wolfgang Pauli (1900-1958) was an influential Austrian theoretical physicist who is best known for his work in quantum mechanics. He is particularly renowned for formulating the Pauli Exclusion Principle, which states that no two identical fermions (such as electrons) can occupy the same quantum state simultaneously. This principle is fundamental to the structure of atoms and explains a wide range of physical and chemical phenomena, including the behavior of electrons in atoms and the stability of matter.
The dude was brutal. Ron Maimon praises that at youtu.be/ObXbKbpkSjQ?t=944 from Video "Ron Maimon interview with Jeff Meverson (2014)".
