David Bohm

(1917 -1992) Quantum physicist

The son of a furniture dealer, Bohm was born in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, in 1917. He studied physics at the University of California with J. Robert Oppenheimer. Unwilling to testify against his former teacher and other friends during the McCarthy hearings, Bohm left the United States and took a post at the University of São Paulo, Brazil. From there he moved to Israel, then England, where he eventually became professor of physics at Birkbeck College in London.

Bohm is perhaps best known for his early work on the interactions of electrons in metals. He showed that their individual, haphazard movement concealed a highly organized and cooperative behaviour called ?plasma oscillation?.

This intimation of an order underlying apparent chaos was pivotal in Bohm's development. In 1959, Bohm, working with Yakir Ahronov, showed that a magnetic field might alter the behaviour of electrons without touching them.

During the Fifties and Sixties Bohm expanded his belief in the existence of hidden variables that control seemingly random quantum events. His ideas diverged more and more from the physics of the day, but are coming to be more highly regarded now.

In the Sixties Bohm met the Indian philosopher Jiddu Krishnamurti, and their continuing dialogues, published as a book The Ending of Time helped the physicist clarify his ideas about wholeness and order.

Believing that the nature of things is not reducible to fragments or particles, he argued for a holistic view of the universe. He demanded that we learn to regard matter and life as a whole, coherent domain.