I see from our programme that I am due to end our session with ‘concluding remarks’. In view of the lateness of the hour, and of the meaty contributions which I at any rate have still to digest, I am sure you will prefer me ‘to conclude’ rather than ‘to remark’. However, I think you might like to hear a remark of Pauli at the time he postulated the existence of the neutrino. It shows in a graphic way just how far experimental techniques have advanced over the past thirty years. I had the story from Walter Baade the astronomer, a close friend of Pauli. The friendship started in a curious way. In the nineteen-twenties Julius Springer was bringing out the now-famous edition of the
Handbuch
. Neither Einstein nor Sommerfeld wanted to write the article on Relativity, but Sommerfeld announced he had found just the right man for the job. In fact he, Sommerfeld, wrote to the Director of the Hamburg Observatory asking if the man in question-a certain Wolfgang Pauli-could spend the summer writing the article in Hamburg. Baade, a junior assistant, was detailed to meet Pauli’s train. Very naturally, Baade expected to receive an august personage-after all this was the man who was to take on what neither Sommerfeld nor Einstein himself would do-so he rolled up for the assignment dressed formally in his only suit. Nothing remotely like an august personage appeared, so Baade tried several tolerably staid travellers, but to no avail. At last, Baade was reduced to approaching a youth in shorts. Success-Pauli !
Being at the right place at the right time
