Historic physics reprints come home

In a surprise happy ending, six boxes of historic reprints have returned home to CERN - more than 30 years after they went missing! The 146 items had been part of the personal library of the Nobel prize-winning physicist, Wolfgang Pauli. After his death in 1958, Pauli's widow bequeathed his scientific legacy to CERN, and part of this valuable archival collection was stored in Salle Pauli, the room dedicated to his memory. In those trustful days the room was always left open so that Pauli's Library could be freely consulted; but then 170 preprints by Born, Bohr, Heisenberg and others - some with dedications to Pauli from the author - disappeared in 1972. Regretfully, the room was then locked. Use of the collection was henceforth ‘by appointment only', but it was assumed that the damage was done and the missing items had gone forever.

However, in 2002 the CERN Archivist was surprised by a phone call from a representative of Christie's, New York, who explained that some reprints bearing the stamp of the CERN Pauli Archive had been offered for sale and asked for confirmation that they had been officially deaccessioned or sold. Many months of discussion followed, with Christie's and with the vendor, who, when he discovered the true provenance of the items, immediately withdrew them from the sale. Thanks to the generosity of the vendor and the hard work of CERN's Legal Service and Logistics Service, these valuable items have now been transferred back to CERN for the nominal sum of $10.

"It was a great relief for the Pauli Committee to learn that, after so many years, these items are finally back where they belong", said its chairman, Gabriele Veneziano. The documents have now been returned to the Pauli Archive, which, as well as the library in Salle Pauli, also includes many original letters, manuscripts and photographs. The Archive team is carrying out a digitisation project to make this valuable historical resource available on the Internet. Many of the records are already available on the CERN Document Server, so if you are interested to see more, just go to