The Undivided Universe: An Ontological Interpretation of Quantum Theory

Mostly beyond my skillset, but I'll get through it some day.

D. Bohm was way ahead of his time. Someday he will receive his recognition. I am guessing another 20-30 years.His ideas are difficult if not impossible for us to prove.G

Great book about quantum theory and how it implies the interconnectedness of everything.

In this book, David Bohm's (probably) last major work before his death, Bohm and Hiley outline in some detail Bohm's original work on the "quantum potential" which he developed from de Broglie's earlier attempts some years ago. This book brings together Bohm and Hiley's work dealing with the quantum potential approach for varied quantum phenomena such as photon absorption, photon emission, the measurement problem in quantum physics and so on. Throughout it is wise to remind oneself of Bohm's comment on this approach when he stated that it is only one possible exploration of an idea and not meant as a final theory by any means. Bohm points out repeatedly that in order to develop the quantum theory further it needs new concepts/philosophy to delve into deeper aspects of reality. If these thoughts are not kept in mind then one gets the distinct feeling that there is something incomplete in the work as it stands. Bohm's attempts at another approach are made through his ideas of the holomovement or implicate order which, although nebulous, is explored in its principals at least as in much of Bohm's other works.I don't believe, like other reviewers have stated, that these ideas are vacuuous. New ideas are absoltely necessary in contemporary physics where the pure mathematical developments of string theory feel empty of real depth. Although speculative, at least Bohm's ideas sound physical and have a physical underpinning as those of Schroedinger, Heisenberg and Bohr in the early 20th century. The difference is that these other great physicists had some experimental work to guide them, Bohm does not, or very little. His ideas rely on the ability of experiments to probe deeper levels of reality between what is possible now say 10^-15 m and 10^-35 m, the Planck length. There exists a huge range of orders of magnitude to explore. I believe in fact the last couple of chapters of the book are the really interesting bits which contain such deeper explorations.It is unfortunate Bohm died early and it is hopefull that Hiley et al will continue his great work with the same radical enthusiasm and not be unconsciously hamstrung by the current mechanistic paradigm.

This book puts forward a coherent description of Bohmian mechanics, a theory that is not widely accepted, and has also been challenged by experiment [1,2]. Even if Bohmian mechanics is unable to describe every system, it is still conceivable that this approach may be of value as a computational scheme for addressing certain problems. Because Bohmian mechanics envisions an actual particle responding to a specially modified potential, Monte Carlo calculations may be used to simulate processes such as electron transport [3,4].[1] M. Baublitz, Phys. Rev A 51, 1677 (1995).[2] G. Brida et al., J. Phys. B 35, 4751 (2002).[3] X. Oriols et al. Appl. Phys. Lett. 72, 806 (1998).[4] L. Shifren and D. K. Ferry, Phys. Lett. A 285, 217 (2001).Bohm and Hiley also consider the philosophical implications of Bohmian mechanics, as well as that of other interpretations of quantum physics such as parallel universes.I had heard Bohm speak while I was in grad school, but was completely snowed. All I can remember of the lecture was Bohm saying "Folding unfolding, folding unfolding...," which was meaningless to me at the time. After reading Bohm and Hiley I have a somewhat better idea what Bohm was saying--which seems to be something to the effect that the universe is an undivided whole and not just a bunch of particles wizzing around and sometimes coming together. I still have a lot of work to do, however, before I can consider myself to have a good understanding of Bohm's world view.

The authors present a different interpretation of quantum mechanics to the orthodox Copenhagen intepretation. For the serious student of quantum mechanics interested in looking at the field from a fresh perspective, Bohm and Hiley's interpretation is very interesting. Bohm is one of the great physicists of the 20th century who understood quantum mechanics as well as anyone. His 1951 textbook on the subject is a classic. Interestingly, he presented the Copenhagen intepretation in this textbook, but a few years later published articles on his ontological or hidden variable interpretation which is the presented in "The Undivided Universe." A cautionary note is this book is not for the lay person.

historically important work

ben fatto e molto chiaro anche se scritto in inglese. Un bellissimo essmpio di divulagazione scientifica chiara in un campo difficile