Chapter 6
LACK OF KNOWLEDGE IS NO GUARANTEE OF SUCCESS
I
f Max Planck fervently clung to the culture of science as a way for Germany to rise above the indignity of its downfall, young men like Wolfgang Pauli and Werner Heisenberg found in the pursuit of science a personal escape from the hardships of life in the grim postwar years. Both were children of privilege, sons of university professors. Both enrolled at the University of Munich at a time when that city had survived starvation only to fall into violent anarchy, a cycle of revolution and repression punctuated by assassination. In later memoirs and interviews they do not dwell on these irksome circumstances. For these two young men life meant science, its splendors and frustrations. Science gave them purpose and freedom. Pauli’s origins were especially conducive to his later career.
