The Exclusion Principle (2020)

“We must be different. We must have opposites… We depend on our outermost shell for stability… We will not violate this principle…”

Wolfgang Pauli’s Exclusion Principle is a fundamental component of quantum mechanics that underpins many key features of atomic structure and, from there, the way in which chemistry, and hence, much of the world, works.

In this video, samples of the text from the Wikipedia article on The Pauli exclusion principle have been reframed to ask: whom are we excluding? And why? “Stand behind the white line…” we are told. And if we do not, what then?

Most of the sequences have been animated from large arrays of still images taken in Melbourne CBD, Carlton, Middle Park, St Kilda (all in Victoria), Adelaide CBD, Hindmarsh, Belair, Blackwood, Goolwa (all in South Australia). Other footage is from flights into and out of Adelaide, Melbourne and Qatar. Some of the animations generate a virtual 3D-effect due to a well-known optical illusion that fools the spatial-depth processing centres of the visual cortex.

•  text published in e•ratio 29 (2020).

The Exclusion Principle

We are not to be confused. Complications will be reduced to a simple rule. 

We are not subject to other principles. 

We cannot occupy the same states at the same time. 

It is impossible for us to have the same values. We must be different. We must have opposites. 

The exchange of our identities is asymmetric, underpinning our everyday, our large scale stability. 

For any ground state, this is true, this zero, the first, the last, a sphere, these repulsive interactions of infinite strength, connected, clustered in some manner. 

Yes, this is how we share, short range, long range, simultaneously, a continuous band of energy levels, a sum of states so degenerate they cannot contribute to this variety of combinations, our exotic occupation. 

We depend on our outermost shell for stability. If disrupted by extreme pressure, this enormous rigidity may collapse.

But, no, this cannot happen. 

We cannot, we will not, violate this principle. 

We will overcome. 

This explanation will be extended to all. 

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