In the early 1950s the American physicist David Bohm (1917-1992) lived through a critical moment, when he produced a new interpretation for quantum mechanics and had to flee from the United States as McCarthyism's victim.At that time he faced vicissitudes related to the Cold War and his move from Princeton to São Paulo.This article focuses on the reception among physicists of his papers on the causal interpretation, which were poorly received at the time.I describe his Brazilian exile and analyze the culture of physics surrounding the foundations of quantum mechanics.This article takes into account the strength of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum physics among physicists, the way in which issues concerning the foundations of quantum mechanics were present in the training of physicists, the low status of these issues on research agendas, and the kind of results Bohm and collaborators were able to achieve.It also compares the reception of Bohm's ideas with that of Hugh Everett's interpretation.This article argues that the obstacles growing from the cultural context of physics at that time had a more significant influence in the reception of Bohm's ideas than did the vicissitudes related to the McCarthyist climate.WHEN DAVID BOHM and Richard Feynman concluded their physics dissertations, during the first half of the 1940s, they were among the most promising students of their generation in American physics.After the war, however, their fates were very different.Feynman reached the zenith of his scientific career in the United States.In 1951, Bohm was forced to leave the United States forever.Before that, he got a position in Princeton, carried out his research on plasma theory, and published a praised graduate
In the early 1950s the American physicist David Bohm (1917-1992) lived through a critical moment, when he produced a new interpretation for quantum mechanics and had to flee from the United States as McCarthyism's victim.At that time he faced vicissitudes related to the Cold War and his move from Princeton to São Paulo.This article focuses on the reception among physicists of his papers on the causal interpretation, which were poorly received at the time.I describe his Brazilian exile and analyze the culture of physics surrounding the foundations of quantum mechanics.This article takes into account the strength of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum physics among physicists, the way in which issues concerning the foundations of quantum mechanics were present in the training of physicists, the low status of these issues on research agendas, and the kind of results Bohm and collaborators were able to achieve.It also compares the reception of Bohm's ideas with that of Hugh Everett's interpretation.This article argues that the obstacles growing from the cultural context of physics at that time had a more significant influence in the reception of Bohm's ideas than did the vicissitudes related to the McCarthyist climate.WHEN DAVID BOHM and Richard Feynman concluded their physics dissertations, during the first half of the 1940s, they were among the most promising students of their generation in American physics.After the war, however, their fates were very different.Feynman reached the zenith of his scientific career in the United States.In 1951, Bohm was forced to leave the United States forever.Before that, he got a position in Princeton, carried out his research on plasma theory, and published a praised graduate
ABSTRACT In the early 1950s the American physicist David Bohm (1917-1992) produced a new interpretation of quantum mechanics and had to flee from McCarthyism. Rejected at Princeton, he moved to São Paulo. This article focuses on the reception of his early papers on the causal interpretation, his Brazilian exile, and the culture of physics surrounding the foundations of quantum mechanics. It weighs the strength of the Copenhagen interpretation, discusses the presentation of the foundations of quantum mechanics in the training of physicists, describes the results Bohm and his collaborators achieved. It also compares the reception of Bohm's ideas with that of Hugh Everett's interpretation. The cultural context of physics had a more significant influence on the reception of Bohm's ideas than the McCarthyist climate.
This article focuses on the reception among physicists of Bohm's 1952 papers on the causal interpretation of quantum mechanics, which were poorly received at the time. I describe his Brazilian exile and analyze the culture of physics surrounding the foundations of quantum mechanics. I take into account the strength of the Copenhagen interpretation among physicists, the way in which issues concerning the foundations of quantum mechanics were present in the training of physicists, the low status of these issues on research agendas, and the kind of results Bohm and collaborators were able to achieve. I also compare the reception of Bohm's ideas with that of Hugh Everett's interpretation and argue that the obstacles growing from the cultural context of physics at that time had a more significant influence in the reception of Bohm's ideas than did the vicissitudes related to the McCarthyist climate.
David Bohm's career as a postwar American physicist demonstrates the effects of the cold war on the theoretical physics of that period. Bohm was fired from Princeton University because of his connections to the Communist Party while a graduate student at Berkeley during World War II; he left the country and took positions in Brazil and Israel and finally found a permanent post in England at Birkbeck College, University of London. Because of his political beliefs, Bohm was cut off from the scientific community that had nourished his early career; his isolation led him to explore creative alternatives to orthodox quantum mechanics but also limited his influence and audience within the mainstream physics community. In the 1970s, physicists and philosophers of science returned to Bohm's work as part of a reexamination of quantum physics.
Abstract Nowadays, David Bohm’s hidden variables interpretation of quantum mechanics is one among other possible interpretations of quantum mechanics. In 1952 when he published this interpretation, he could not foresee the complex denouement it would have. I argue that the initial poor reception of Bohm’s proposal, as well as his discouragement in the late 1950s, was related to the prejudices among physicists concerning the hidden variables issues, and its later revival, in the mid-1970s, without any new evidence corroborating it, was related to a new intellectual ambiance concerning interpretational issues. However, even today, there is a persistent misunderstanding about what interpretations may be compatible with quantum mechanics. Lessons from this history for the practice of science are related to the role played by prejudices even in advanced fields of scientific research and the need to overcome them.
Christian Forstner Quantenmechanik im Kalten Krieg: David Bohm und Richard Feynman ( Stuttgart , GNT-Verlag , 2007 ), 242 pp. , [ hbk ] €30.00 ISBN 978-3-928186-81-0 . This book is about the social context of the development of quantum physics in the Cold War period. It is presented in the form of a comparative socio-biographical study of two American physicists, David Bohm (1917–1993) and Richard Feynman (1918–1988), and their very different careers and approaches and contributions to quantum physics. Bohm is known for his formulation of a new interpretation of quantum mechanics in 1952 invoking so-called ‘hidden parameters'. A year before that, he was suspended from Princeton University because of his involvement with the political Left and took up a position in Brazil. Feynman has often been portrayed, not least by himself, as a completely context-free genius who received the Nobel Prize in 1965 for his contributions to quantum electrodynamics. Forstner offers a fresh view of these theoretical physicists, and what is particularly notable is that not only the ‘outsider’ Bohm but also the ‘genius’ Feynman is placed within a social and ideological context. The book fascinates all the way from its introductory chapter about the emergence of what was (after WWII) called the Copenhagen Interpretation of quantum mechanics and its pragmatic reception in the US (a chapter which perhaps ought to have been called ‘Von Europa nach Amerika’ rather than ‘Von Deutschland nach Amerika’), to the later case studies of Bohm and Feynman and their respective contributions to quantum physics. Unlike the typical numbers-oriented American physicist that focused exclusively on practical calculations, Bohm was preoccupied with the foundations of quantum mechanics and the philosophy of science. Of particular interest is Forstner's analysis of Bohm's early political engagement, his Marxism, and his motivation in dialectical materialism in writing his textbook Quantum Theory (1951) (in which Bohm seems to have been supportive in his own way of the Copenhagen Interpretation), and later in formulating his hidden variables interpretation. In his treatment of Feynman, Forstner analyses and challenges Feynman's self-understanding and demonstrates convincingly that Feynman was not context-free but was driven by an identifiable instrumentalist scientific ideology which, however, contrary to Bohm's, resonated well with the typical American physicist's way of thinking. In his analysis Forstner makes use of Ludwik Fleck's concepts of thought collective and thought style. Hence, the careers of the two main figures and their respective approaches and contributions to quantum physics are understood in relation to their respective local and political thought collectives and thought styles. Through this perspective social aspects of the development of theoretical physics become obvious. However, sometimes the use of Fleck's scheme seems to get in the way of the flow of the narrative, and it fails to bring out perspectives of the story pertaining to individual efforts. For example, Forstner explains the fact that Bohm pursued his ideas about a new interpretation of quantum mechanics by his dismissal from Princeton and his later exile from the US, and hence his isolation from the American physicists' thought collective and style; the reason being that Bohm no longer felt inhibited by the American pragmatic thought style but could pursue his own thinking freely. Framing this work in dialectical materialism could even be taken as suggesting it was means of defiance against his oppressors. Indeed this sounds plausible. However, the discussion with Einstein, who was based at the Institute of Advanced Study in Princeton, about the new interpretation of quantum mechanics, seems also to have been important for Bohm's further pursuit of these ideas, and it would have been interesting if this link had been explored on a deeper level. Moreover, the comparative biographical analysis might have been enriched by a greater attention to personal or psychological traits of the two physicists, such as Feynman's humorous attitude and recklessness versus Bohm's tendency to depression. The book has a clear and well balanced structure and Forstner is lucid in addressing the central issues he wants to highlight in the difficult and complex physics of the two protagonists, employing only a few relevant mathematical formulas. The book is based on a wide variety of sources such as original contributions to quantum electrodynamics and the foundations of quantum mechanics, unpublished manuscripts, private correspondence, oral history, and the FBI files about his two heroes.
David Bohm A recent issue contained a review of the novel "Properties of Light," by Rebecca Goldstein (C&EN, Nov. 6, 2000, page 46). It is described as being "loosely" based on the life of physicist David Bohm. The novel contains an afterword in which it is said that Bohm (then at Princeton) published in 1952 a formulation of quantum mechanics that was outside the mainstream of modern physics at the time and was dismissed by the scientific community. As a consequence, the review states, "That rejection, in essence, ended Bohm's career. He spent most of the rest of his life in embittered obscurity." This description of David Bohm's career is a farrago of nonsense. Bohm, working from Princeton, published a standard, very useful text called "Quantum Theory" in 1951. He accepted an invitation to visit a South American university shortly afterward, but found himself barred from returning to the U.S. ...