PAULI PRINCIPLE IN EUCLIDEAN GEOMETRY

A macroscopic toy of Dirac and Stong shows how to detect 277- rotations in our world. A theorem in geometry shows the toy is maximal; no device in three dimensions can measure bigger angles than this toy. Assuming then that the toy correctly models motion of fermions in our world, a “hand waving” derivation of the Pauli principle follows. Finally algebra is brought in to express the geometric truth. A famous ‘sign ambiguity goes away. © 1979, American Association of Physics Teachers. All rights reserved.