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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
This thesis aims to explore the relationship between the science, the philosophy and the esoteric imagination of the American physicist David Bohm (1917-1992). Bohm is recognized as one of the most brilliant physicists of his generation. He is famous for his ‘hidden variables’ interpretation of quantum mechanics. Bohm wrote extensively on philosophical and psychological subjects. In his celebrated book Wholeness and the Implicate Order (1882) he introduced the influential ideas of the Explicate and the Implicate orders that are at the core of his process philosophy. Bohm was also a very close disciple of the Indian teacher Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895-1986), whom he recognized to have had an important influence on his thought. Chapter 1 is a general explanation of what I intend to do, why my research is filling an important gap, introduce the field of Western esotericism as a scholarly subject and suggesting that it offers a fruitful way of approaching the thought of David Bohm. I also explain my research principles and a brief description of the philosophical standpoint from which I am approaching the material. Chapter 2 gives a description of the textual sources I used in my research. This is followed by a comprehensive literature review. Chapter 3 is a biographical essay where I give an account of Bohm’s life, career, works, major ideas and their development, stressing their significance for the development of Bohm’s holistic philosophy and his interactions with the esoteric. This chapter is an introduction to the main ideas of the dissertation. Chapter 4 revisits the genesis of the Causal Interpretation, Bohm’s first attempt to deal with the interpretation of quantum mechanics. I make emphasis on the philosophical developments that gave rise to it. I introduce all the relevant physics and give a detailed explanation of the problem of interpretation and Bohm’s first proposal. Chapter 5 is about the philosophical developments in Bohm’s thought brought by the Causal Interpretation. In particular I examine the influence that G. W. F. Hegel (1770-1831) had on Bohm’s thought and explain why I take the view that this is an esoteric influence. Chapter 6 reviews the developments in Bohm’s thought during the 1960’s. I describe Bohm’s search for radically new concepts in physics and his exchanges with several thinkers ending with his encounter with Jiddu Krishnamurti. Chapters 7 and 8 are devoted to the study of Bohm’s philosophy as he elaborated it after 1960. Chapter 7 concentrates on the idea of the Implicate Order and it also studies the Ontological Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics, Bohm’s last version of his interpretation effort, which is based on the Implicate Order. In chapter 8 I examine Bohm’s theory of how the mind and the body are connected through a ladder of consciousness formed by a series of Explicate and Implicate Orders, and finishes with an exposition of Bohm’s dialogue technique. In the last chapter I summarize my conclusions. An appendix is included with a brief overview of Bohm’s legacy. All the relevant details about the esoteric currents that Bohm encountered during his life and that are required to understand our argument are introduced as they are needed throughout the main body of the text.