Product Description

ciousness, friend to Oppenheimer, and enemy to the House Un-American Activities Committee, Infinite Potential explains David Bohm's landmark scientific work, including his famous "hidden variables" casual interpretation of quantum mechanics.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #603098 in Books
• Published on: 1997-11-12
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 380 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Dismissed by establishment scientists as a maverick or mystical rebel, American physicist David Bohm (1917-1992) sought a holistic physics, a unified vision of matter and mind, brain and consciousness. His search for an alternative quantum theory led him to formulate a cosmology depicting a universe of infinite levels, each qualitatively different yet part of an interconnected whole. In this brilliant intellectual biography, science writer Peat, Bohm's longtime friend and colleague, portrays an intensely cerebral man gripped by periods of crippling depression, who had an acute need of a guru or father figure, whether mentor J. Robert Oppenheimer or Indian philosopher/ teacher Jiddu Krishnamurti, and who ultimately felt betrayed by each of them. Born in Pennsylvania to a Hungarian Jewish immigrant father and a manic-depressive mother of Lithuanian Jewish extraction, Bohm, who settled in London in the late 1950s, was a disillusioned Marxist thinker (he briefly joined the U.S. Communist Party in 1942) who bravely refused to name names to a Congressional witchhunt committee when called to testify in 1949. Peat's probing exploration of Bohm's quest for an "implicate order," a deeper reality beneath the surface appearance of things, helps explain his influence on writers, artists, psychologists and philosophers as well as open-minded physicists.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Science writer Peat, who with Bohm coauthored Science, Order and Creativity (LJ 11/15/87), writes with compassion and warmth about the famous physicist. He covers Bohm's entire personal and professional lives (he died in 1992), from childhood as the son of a poor Jewish immigrant to becoming one of the most influential thinkers of the 20th century. Much of Bohm's work?the development of plasma theory and subsequent work with solid-state physics, his famous hidden-variables interpretation of quantum mechanics?was worthy of a Nobel Prize. Einstein once spoke of Bohm as his intellectual successor, but because of his unconventional political views and the McCarthy blacklisting madness, he was forced to become an expatriate in Brazil. Bohm's desire for an understanding of the universe at its most fundamental level led him to study philosophy and metaphysics. Peat's excellent biography is highly recommended for academic and large public libraries.?James Olson, Northeastern Illinois Univ. Lib., Chicago
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About the Author

Customer Reviews

Excellent summary of Bohm's perspective on life and physics
This is an excellent account of David Bohm, his work and his philosophy. It details his encounters with some of the leading thinkers of his day, including Albert Einstein, Jiddu Krishnamurti and Richard Feynman. Bohm's treatment of his theory of the explicate order and implicate order is described in a very eloquent way by the author. It also addresses how David Bohm was one of those super intellectuals whom the United States had difficulty in accepting and how he "lost" his citizenship over his beliefs. It is a book that is worthwhile reading!

A strangely moving man
This book illuminates the life of David Bohm as both man and scientist--who was nothing at all like I imagined. I knew of Bohm chiefly through the reputation of "Wholeness & the Implicate Order" among New-Age/Fringe Science circles, and through his collaboration with J. Krishnamurti (the darling Theosophical saint, of lately tarnished reputation.) Here, we see Bohm *exactly* as depicted on the cover, wrinkles in high relief and all. Betrayed by squealing Oppenheimer, mentor to famous Feynmann, dumped by Jiddhu Krishnamurti, he was stripped of his citizenship and lived a sorrowful life, despondent & frequently bitter that he had not been given a fair chance to realize his true potential, his scientific contributions not properly acknowledged. He clung to his materialist Marxist philosophy throughout his life; indeed, his Communist connections partially explain (along with Oppenheimer's "tissue of lies") his citizenship problems. Most importantly for would-be devotees, Bohm's life-long devotion to Marxist dogma strongly influenced his materialist interpretation of quantum mechanics and should give pause to those attracted to the "Implicate Order" as somehow acknowledging consciousness in science and the universe. All in all, a good biography of a strangely moving man

If you are an imaginear and love potential this is the book
Have you ever read a book that captures your senses and brings an extraordinary perspective to them? Did you ever sit in a crowd of friends and people and quote from a book and feel like you just started to walk down a lonely road? David Peat in Infinite Potential captures insights generally that would not be unfolded in a life time of study. Why? This book transcends disciplines, religions, science and art by just following the journey of David Bohm. This unique man and his science speaks to each of us in our journeys through the courage to explore. Discovery becomes a theme in this book and each chapter invokes potentials in life yet to be tested. Throw out if you will Bohms sincere misguided meanderings into archaic political systems and fallen gurus and what you have left over in this book is possibilities.

While this book does not offer answers it does pose questions that silence the mind, quiet the waters and open you up to the consideration, that something is larger than the measurements in life we make. It takes the good old boys club of empirical scientist and leaves them behind in the cosmology of dialogue and understanding. You can see why Bohm launched a major revolution at the corporate levels throughout the world in team learning and total quality management. In this book you capture the etiology of a movement in transformation beyond testable devices. Freedom is a major theme in the pages and examples of the price you pay for loyalty and principles is very clear. Courage is shown and love of ones country openly enough to test the freedom of thought, speech and creativity.

What are the new metaphors that breathe new spirit into our dreams? Bohms Nonlocal action oriented concept of participation, engagement, force without force, bringing all you have to those with new and different insights is whole in every aspect. Peat represents in a simple way the gift Bohm had, patience sincerity and the art of listening. Objective reality of which he believed in whole heatedly! exposed the very Guru he believed in to be just a man not a saint.

By his rich innocence Peat see's friends and critics alike calling out for more from this secular saint. You might not buy the Pilot Wave Theory, the Implicate Order or the concept of a undivided universe but you will see an original unselfish pioneer in these pages with concepts to launch a New Frontier with.

Peat connects those of us that were to late to capture Bohm in life to the infinite potentials of cascading possibilities on these pages.