The Pauli effect

Whenever Pauli was around an ongoing experiment something would go wrong. This is the Pauli effect and symbolizes the odd picture of this crazy theorist who by some supernatural powers influences his surroundings. In some sense it reminds me of the the spooky action of a distance in quantum mechanics, or entanglement. Indeed these ideas of entanglement are often seen as mysterious but in fact they are simply a property of non-locality. Things don't have to happen at a given time in a given space. Like this neat idea of a split 1 US$, where one half is in one box and the other half in the other box. Now the dollar is no more localized in one of the boxes but rather in both at the same time (non-locality of the dollar). This idea is really powerful since it allows the idea of "being everywhere" at the same time. This is also appealing not only in a physical aspect (the Pauli effect - perceived influence at a distance) but also in a more political context: can we influence distant events. In theory, this is definitely true, since a simple tweet here might influence events in Iran, for example.