Relation between the Reciprocal Impenetrability of Matter and Pauli's Exclusion Principle: a Correction

Abstract

SOME paradoxes which have occurred to me and have been pointed out to me also by some of my colleagues (especially Dr. Fues, Copenhagen), show that the fundamental statement of my letter (NATURE, Feb. 5) published under the above title, is incorrect. It is not true that the reciprocal impenetrability of the molecules allows only of the Heisenberg-Dirac determinant solutions, and excludes all others. On the contrary, all the symmetrical and antisymmetrical characteristic solutions which existed for absolutely penetrable molecules remain for a (not one-dimensional) gas with molecules having a radius very small compared with the mean distance; only the characteristic values are a little changed, and the characteristic functions undergo a deformation in the immediate neighbourhood of the ‘diagonal spaces.’ If, therefore, the Pauli principle is valid not only for the electrons of an atom but also for the translatory motion of gas molecules, with radius almost zero, then such a remarkable relation between the molecules cannot be so simply explained by wave mechanics as my mistake led me to believe.