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Wikipedia states, that the spin degree of freedom was first formulated by Pauli in 1924:

In 1924 Wolfgang Pauli introduced what he called a "two-valued quantum degree of freedom" associated with the electron in the outermost shell.

However, there is no reference to this quote. Does someone know the publication where Pauli introduced this quantum number for the first time? The only paper I know this one, where he formulates his exclusion principle. But this is from 1925, so one year later.

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    $\begingroup$ There is a history-of-physics StackExchange. $\endgroup$
    – user137289
    Apr 5, 2018 at 11:02
  • $\begingroup$ Oh thanks. Ok, so I think this question can be closed then. $\endgroup$
    – thyme
    Apr 5, 2018 at 11:06
  • $\begingroup$ @thyme It can be migrated, but I think a mod has to do that. $\endgroup$
    – Martin C.
    Apr 5, 2018 at 11:13
  • $\begingroup$ The link to the paper at springerlink.com is broken. Perhaps you could take a look, whenever possible… $\endgroup$
    – user337588
    Jun 17, 2022 at 13:54

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Pauli himself talked about this in his Nobel Lecture: https://www.nobelprize.org/uploads/2018/06/pauli-lecture.pdf:

In the autumn of 1924 I published some arguments against this point of view, which I definitely rejected as incorrect and proposed instead of it the assumption of a new quantum theoretic property of the electron, which I called a « two-valuedness not describable classically »3.

However, the reference 3 is to a paper published in January 1925.

Reference W. Pauli, Z. Physik, 31 (1925) 765

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