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David Bohm (1917-1992) was a preeminent physicist and philosopher of science. A student of Robert Oppenheimer and Einstein, and contemporary of Nils Bohr, Bohm was a member of the Royal Academy, the originator of the causal interpretation of quantum theory, and the author of a famous text on quantum mechanics (Quantum Theory, Prentice-Hall, 1951) as well as numerous other books and articles. The classic Quantum Theory was a clarification of Bohr’s Atomic Theory and the Description of Nature. David Bohm’s text generated several topics in the field which remain the subject of current research.

Early Interests in Science
David Bohm was born in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania to parents who had emigrated to the United States from what was then Austria-Hungary. His father was a successful furniture businessman; there was no physics background in the family, but Bohm became interested in science from an early age, with special fascination for astronomy and a passion for inventing useful tools. As he began to study physics more seriously, he was captivated by properties of the structure of matter and its movement which seemed to suggest a highly interconnected substructure; his mature works eventually shaped these perceptions into a radical way of describing reality which Bohm called the implicate order.

Quantum Mechanics
David Bohm was the last graduate student to study with Robert Oppenheimer at the University of California, Berkeley, in the 1940s, where he remained as a research physicist after Oppenheimer left for Los Alamos to work on the atomic bomb. At Berkeley he worked with the latter phases of the Manhattan Project, and on plasma theory. From 1947 to 1951 he taught at Princeton University as an assistant professor, working on plasmas, the study of the behavior of electrons in metals, and quantum mechanics, work which established David Bohm’s reputation as a theoretical physicist.

Expatriation after McCarthy Blacklist
A year after arriving at Princeton, Bohm was asked to testify against colleagues and associates before the House of Representatives’ Un-American Activities Committee; he pled the Fifth Amendment. While the indictment against him for contempt of Congress was dropped a year later, McCarthy’s blacklisting had a chilling effect on his employment prospects in American universities. His contract at Princeton expired during the trials, and he was unable to obtain another professorship in the U.S. Oppenheimer advised him to leave the country; David Bohm subsequently held professorships at universities in Brazil and Israel, Bristol University in England and Birkbeck College, University of London.

Notable Contributions to Science and Philosophy
As William Keepin notes in his article, David Bohm: River of Truth (ReVision, Summer 1993), Bohm’s contribution to science continues to “unfold”as being yet far broader than the significant influence his work has had upon quantum mechanics:

Bohm approached science as a quest for truth, and, in this spirit, he unpacked and revealed the epistemological foundations of science (in his study of order), and he utilized these insights to conceive a profound ontological hypothesis (the holomovement and implicate orders). This hypothesis is rigorously grounded in the experimental evidence of physics, and as such it is not just a new way of thinking about physics, it is a new physics; that is, it is an entirely new way of understanding the fundamental nature of the physical universe, as glimpsed through the data and laws of physics.

Dialogue and the Implicate Order
Consistent with Bohm’s deep interest in interconnectedness and wholeness, he developed a critique of thought and a philosophy of existence that reflected inter-relationships of energy, matter, and meaning. Within these explorations, David Bohm sought ways persons might individually and collectively “get beyond thought” and its fragmented and subjective potential for misconstruing the nature of “things as they are.” In this spirit of inquiry, Bohm entered into an in-depth, sustained dialogue with Jiddu Krishnamurti, Indian philosopher and teacher. Through conversations over more than a decade, in Ojai, California and elsewhere, the physicist and the spiritual leader probed fundamental issues of existence. Many of these conversations were captured in manuscript form; from those taking place in 1980, an edited exchange was published as The Ending of Time. This dialogue explored the problems of the fragmented mind and the unreliability of thought. In 1991, David Bohm, Donald Factor, and Peter Garrett formally proposed the use and practice of Dialogue to allow people to explore:

presuppositions, ideas, beliefs, and feelings that subtly control their interactions. It provides an opportunity to participate in a process that displays communication successes and failures. It can reveal the often confusing puzzle of patterns of incoherence that lead the group to avoid certain issues or, on the other hand, to insist against all reason, on standing and defending opinions about particular issues.

Dialogue is a way of observing, collectively, how hidden values and intentions can control our behavior, and how unnoticed cultural differences can clash without our realizing what is occurring. It can therefore be seen as an arena in which collective learning takes place and out of which a sense of increased harmony, fellowship and creativity can arise.( See Dialogue: A Proposal by David Bohm, Donald Factor, and Peter Garrett, 1991.)

Editor’s note: This biosketch adapted from biographical material noted in David Bohm: People Featured, introductory essays from Mystic Fire, Inc. (http://www.mysticfire.com/NIBohm.html ) and the "General Introduction" in Quantum Implications: Essays in Honor of David Bohm, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, 1987. Edited by B.J. Hiley and F. David Peat.

For further biographical material, see also F. David Peat, Infinite Potential: The Life and Times of David Bohm and William Keepin, David Bohm: River of Truth (ReVision, Summer 1993) also available through Shavano Institute at http://www.shavano.org/html/bohm1.html