• RobotToaster@mander.xyz
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    105
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    edit-2
    8 days ago

    See also, the Pauli effect: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pauli_effect

    The Pauli effect or Pauli’s device corollary is the supposed tendency of technical equipment to encounter critical failure in the presence of certain people. The term was coined after mysterious anecdotal stories involving Austrian theoretical physicist Wolfgang Pauli, describing numerous instances in which demonstrations involving equipment suffered technical problems only when he was present.

    An incident occurred in the physics laboratory at the University of Göttingen. An expensive measuring device, for no apparent reason, suddenly stopped working, although Pauli was in fact absent. James Franck, the director of the institute, reported the incident to his colleague Pauli in Zürich with the humorous remark that at least this time Pauli was innocent. However, it turned out that Pauli had been on a railway journey to Zürich and had switched trains in the Göttingen rail station at about the time of the failure.

    R. Peierls describes a case when at one reception this effect was to be parodied by deliberately crashing a chandelier upon Pauli’s entrance. The chandelier was suspended on a rope to be released, but it stuck instead, thus becoming a real example of the Pauli effect

    • ProfessorOwl_PhD [any]@hexbear.net
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      7
      ·
      8 days ago

      Interesting, I seem to have the opposite condition - something breaks, then they ask me to look at it and by the time I get there it’s working perfectly again.

      • RobotToaster@mander.xyz
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        4
        ·
        edit-2
        7 days ago

        The article I linked says they’re unrelated.

        The Pauli effect is not related to the Pauli exclusion principle, which is a bona fide physical phenomenon named after Pauli. However the Pauli effect was humorously tagged as a second Pauli exclusion principle, according to which a functioning device and Wolfgang Pauli may not occupy the same room.