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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 — originally, physicist Wolfgang Pauli. The Pauli effect is not related to the Pauli exclusion principle, which is a good faith 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.
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. The incident is reported in George Gamow's book Thirty Years That Shook Physics,Thirty Years That Shook Physics: The Story of Quantum Theory, 1966, Dover Publications, . where it is also claimed the more talented the theoretical physicist, the stronger the effect.
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.
In 1934, Pauli saw a failure of his car during a honeymoon tour with his second wife as proof of a real Pauli effect since it occurred without an obvious external cause.Wissenschaftlicher Briefwechsel mit Bohr, Einstein, Heisenberg u. a, Band 3 von Wolfgang Pauli, Karl von Meyenn, Herausgeber Karl von Meyenn, Verlag Birkhäuser, 1993, , P. 763
In February 1950, when he was at Princeton University, the cyclotron burnt, and he asked himself if this mischief belonged to such a Pauli effect, named after him.
Pauli was convinced that the effect named after him was real.Enz (2002), p. 150. He corresponded with Carl Jung and Marie-Louise von Franz about the concept of synchronicity. He also corresponded with Hans Bender, lecturer at Freiburg university Institut für Grenzgebiete der Psychologie und Psychohygiene and the only parapsychology chair in Germany.Hans Bender und die Gründung des "Instituts für Grenzgebiete der Psychologie und Psychohygiene"Eberhard Bauer, September 1997. published in Jahnke, J., Fahrenberg, J., Stegie, R., & Bauer, E. (Hrsg.): Psychologiegeschichte: Beziehungen zu Philosophie und Grenzgebieten (Passauer Schriften zur Psychologiegeschichte; Bd. 12). München; Wien: Profil, 1998.
Jung and Pauli saw some parallels between physics and depth psychology.Institut für Grenzgebiete der Psychologie und Psychohygiene, Bibliothek, Frei122-Z60 Zeitschrift für Parapsychologie und Grenzgebiete der Psychologie Band 4.1960/61, p.13 Pauli was among the honored guests at the foundation festivities of the C.G. Jung Institute in Zürich in 1948. An example of the Pauli effect happened at the ceremony: As he entered, a china flower vase fell on the floor for no obvious reason. This incident caused Pauli to write his article "Background-Physics", in which he tries to find complementary relationships between physics and depth psychology. (2025). 9780691012070, Princeton University Press. ISBN 9780691012070
In the anime series Yu-Gi-Oh! Sevens, Tatsuhisa Kamijō is a self-proclaimed "demon-embodied" human who can randomly cause electronic devices such as phones and drones to malfunction or self destruct with his hands. The main character, Yuga Ohdo, attributes this to the Pauli Effect.Yu-Gi-Oh! Sevens "The Man Who Possesses Evil". 2020. film Directed by T. Takeuchi. Japan: Bridge.
The anime Amnesia: Fated Memories and the video game Signalis also reference the Pauli effect.
In the movie , Captain Lochley describes this effect to Lieutenant Corwin, drawing a parallel to how crises seem to emerge only when President Sheridan or ex-security chief Garibaldi are at the station.
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