David Bohm
David Bohm
David Joseph Bohm (; 20 December 1917 – 27 October 1992) was an American scientist who has been described as one of the most significant theoretical physicists of the 20th century and who contributed unorthodox ideas to quantum theory, neuropsychology and the philosophy of mind. Among his many contributions to physics is his causal and deterministic interpretation of quantum theory known as De Broglie–Bohm theory.
David Bohm
Bohm advanced the view that quantum physics meant that the old Cartesian model) of reality—that there are two kinds of substance, the mental and the physical, that somehow interact—was too limited. To complement it, he developed a mathematical and physical theory of "implicate" and "explicate" order. He also believed that the brain, at the cellular level, works according to the mathematics of some quantum effects, and postulated that thought is distributed and non-localised just as quantum entities are. Bohm's main concern was with understanding the nature of reality in general and of consciousness in particular as a coherent whole, which according to Bohm is never static or complete.
Youth and college
Bohm lived in the same neighborhood as some of Oppenheimer's other graduate students (Giovanni Rossi Lomanitz, Joseph Weinberg, and Max Friedman) and with them became increasingly involved in radical politics. He was active in communist and communist-backed organizations, including the Young Communist League, the Campus Committee to Fight Conscription, and the Committee for Peace Mobilization. During his time at the Radiation Laboratory, Bohm was in a relationship with Betty Friedan and also helped to organize a local chapter of the Federation of Architects, Engineers, Chemists and Technicians, a small labor union affiliated to the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO).
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