| Home | An American Tragedy: David Bohm was an American quantum physicist. Born at Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania, he attended Pennsylvania State College, graduating in 1939. The above is true but it only tells part of the story. In spite of being at the top of all his classes at Penn State he was unable to obtain admission and funding for graduate school, probably because of the anti-Semitism the 1930's society. Fortunately Penn State offered a scholarship to the winner of the annual mathematics contest. This contest consisted of 5 problems to be solved in an afternoon. Anyone who solved 2 was generally the winner. Bohm solved 4 and outlined the 5th. This gained him a fellowship to Cal Tech for graduate school. Unhappy with the competitive environment and regimentation at Cal Tech he never the less became the first student in Cal Tech to solve every problem in Smith’s Graduate Electrodynamics course. Bohm finally left Cal Tech for U.C. Berkeley where he studied with Oppenheimer. With Oppenheimer he flourished and when Oppenheimer was tapped to head the Manhattan Atomic Bomb Project he wanted Bohm with him. General Groves denied Bohm clearance because of his one time membership in the Young Communist League and other groups, which the FBI deemed to be Communist Fronts. He stayed at Berkeley teaching physics while completing his Ph.D. in 1943. His Ph.D. dissertation was deemed vital to the Manhattan Project and was quickly classified. Without security clearance Bohm was denied access to his own work and was further barred from defending his thesis and was even stopped from writing on his own thesis. His friend Oppenheimer stepped forward and certified that he had successfully completed all the research. In spite of being continually slapped in the face he did the theoretical calculations that allowed the electromagnetic enrichment of uranium that was used in the bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima. But Bohm’s travails were not over. In 1949 He got caught up in the hysteria of McCarthyism. He was working with Einstein at Princeton, and when McCarthy called on him to testify against Oppenheimer he took the fifth, he was arrested in 1950 and acquitted the next year, but Princeton in spite of Einstein's entreaties, had already fired him and refused to reinstate him. Because no university dared to hire him he was effectively kicked out of the country, and left for Brazil to teach Physics at the University of San Paulo. In 1955 he moved to Israel and two years later to England, where he was Professor of Theoretical Physics at Birbeck College, London University until his retirement in 1987. In many respects Bohm was a tragic figure. Most of his life he suffered from bouts of depression which he believed to have inherited from his mother. Betrayed by those he trusted he had reasons to be depressed and these bouts often occurred after disillusionment with someone that he considered a friend. One of these was Krishnamurti. When Bohm discovered a man he felt to be almost a saint and who advocated celibacy, had a 30-year affair with the wife of his business manager. She had had several abortions and miscarriages all of, which Krishnamurti kept secret from her husband. This plunged Bohm into another deep depression. But perhaps the most tragic betrayal all was when Bohm came to Oppenheimer's defense by refusing to testify before Sen. McCarthy. Taking the fifth he was arrested and while finally acquitted, he was fired by Princeton and advised by Oppenheimer to leave the country. In order to clear himself Oppenheimer had told McCarthy that Bohm was dangerous, which led to Bohm’s arrest. Oppenheimer further said Bohm theories were juvenile and since no one could disprove them they should simply be ignored. At least in the United Stated this is what happened, he was ignored. This was another thing that depressed Bohm. Even though Einstein had said Bohm would be his successor; his theories created a great deal of animosity because they disturbed the Status Quo. Most physicists refused to accept or even acknowledge his theories. Toward the end of his life his depression got much worse and he was finally hospitalized and placed on Zoloft (Sertaline). He had previously had a heart attack and triple by-pass and died in a taxicab shortly after being released from the hospital. Bohm felt he was abandoned and had no friends. His wife, Saral pointed out that he had many friends and admirers such as David Peat, Nobel laureate Maurice Wilkins, and David Pratt who had stuck by him through thick and thin. Bohms students described him as "a secular saint." While much of Bohm’s work concerned "Wholeness," his biographer David Peat observed, "Bohm never found wholeness himself." Go the Links to see why today Bohm is often called the greatest physicist of the 20th century. Links: |