A colleague who met me strolling rather aimlessly in the beautiful streets of Copenhagen said to me in a friendly manner, “You look very unhappy,” whereupon I answered angrily, “How can one look happy when he is thinking about the anomalous Zeeman effect?”
Wolfgang Pauli
Mephistopheles the mathematician
Smiles a sardonic smile.
The veiled woman on the staircase
Sings with perfect guile.
And everywhere the numbers
Turn somersaults all the while.
There are thirty-two paths of wisdom,
Of which I have stumbled on
Perhaps one or two, no more.
The more precisely one knows the energy
Of a spectral line ignited when an electron jumps
From a higher to a lower orbit within an atom,
The less precisely can you measure
The time the action takes.
The dreams and mandalas of physics,
The Buddhist sutras of everyday life,
Drive me deeper and deeper
Into mathematics.
Invented or discovered, the world
Holds me to uncanny bargains.
No matter how old I grow
I shall always be afraid.
From three to four is the difficult transition.
Symmetries and harmonies beyond comprehension
Madden my straining intellect.
Every theory contains its own heresy.
The weak links teach more than the strong.
From circles to ellipses my mind runs.
The trembling thrust of planetary motions
I sense in each line I write.
Can it be that God is left-handed?
Dogs and foxes bite me in my sleep.
A Chinese woman hands me a bowl of noodles
With a weird little smile.
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