Works by
David Bohm
(Physicist, Writer)
[December 20, 1917 - October 27, 1992]

Books

• The Essential David Bohm (2002), Lee Nichol, ed.
  There are few scientists of the twentieth century whose life's work has created more excitement and controversy than that of physicist David Bohm (1917-1992). Exploring the philosophical implication of both physics and consciousness, Bohm's penchant for questioning scientific and social orthodoxy was the expression of a rare and maverick intelligence.
  
  For Bohm, the world of matter and the experience of consciousness were two aspects of a more fundamental process he called the implicate order. Without a working sensibility of what this implicate order might be, our conceptions of the various threads of Bohm's work--whether in quantum theory or social dialogue remain incomplete. But with an enhanced understanding of such an order, the wholeness of Bohm's work becomes apparent and accessible.
  
  For the first time in a single volume, The Essential David Bohm offers a comprehensive overview of Bohm's original works from a non-technical perspective. Including three chapters of previously unpublished material, each reading has been selected to highlight some aspect of the implicate order process, and to provide an introduction to one of the most provocative thinkers of our time.

• Bohm-Biederman Correspondence: Creativity and Science(1999), Paavo Pylkkänen, ed.
  In March of 1960, the artist Charles Biederman wrote a one page, spontaneous letter to David Bohm, the first of over four thousand pages of correspondence that ended in 1969. This first volume of the Bohm-Biederman Correspondence, including letters between 1960 and 1962, is a cultural document which traces the fascinating exchange between art and science, creativity and theory, a great physicist and an extraordinary artist.
  
  One of the most important factors that triggered such intense correspondence between the two men was their shared interest in the natural world. Approaching nature from different angles, the perspectives of art and science meant that they complemented and in this sense needed each other in order to obtain a fuller understanding. The two men also felt a dissatisfaction with the dominant trends their fields. They shared the idea that both in art and in physics, traditional views of nature had become inadequate in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, and the mainstream had failed to respond adequately to new situations.
  
  These letters give readers a rare opportunity to engage in a remarkable transatlantic intellectual discussion between the prestigious physicist and a great artist.

• The Limits of Thought: Discussions between David Bohm and Jiddu Krishnamurti (1999)
  The penetrating dialogues between Jiddu Krishnamurti and David Bohm in The Limits of Thought, is the first time that an in-depth and sustained discussion has been recorded between a leading religious teacher and a prominent physicist. The starting point of their engaging exchange is the question, "Has humanity taken a wrong turn, which has brought about endless division, conflict, and destruction?"
  
  Bohm and Krishnamurti explore the nature of humanity and a person's relationship to society, and provide new insights on human thought, death, awakening insight, cosmic order, and the problem of the fragmented mind. At the heart of these discussions lies each of our own ideas about ourselves, a consciousness made up of all sorts of misconceptions about the "me."
  
  The friendly dialogue between Krishnamurti and Bohm, spanning almost twenty-five years, probed some of the most essential questions of our very existence.

• On Dialogue (1996, 2004), Lee Nichol, ed
  On Dialogue is the most comprehensive documentation to date of best-selling author David Bohm's dialogical world view. Bohm explores the purpose, methods and meanings of the multi-faceted process he referred to simply as "dialogue", suggesting that dialogue offers the possibility of an entirely new order of communication and relationship with ourselves, our fellows, and the world around us.
  
  Bohm's basic message is: if your views are correct, they do not need an aggressive defense; if they are incorrect they do not deserve it and realizing that is the beginning of dialogue. His book offers tools that facilitate a true exchange of ideas between people.

• The Undivided Universe (1993) with B.J. Hiley
  In the The Undivided Universe, David Bohn and Basil Hiley present a radically different approach to quantum theory. They develop an interpretation of quantum mechanics which gives a clear, intuitive understanding of its meaning and in which there is a coherent notion of the reality of the universe without assuming a fundamental role for the human observer.
  
  With the aid of new concepts such as active information together with non-locality, they provide a comprehensive account of all the basic features of quantum mechanics, including the relativistic domain and quantum field theory.
  
  It is shown that, with the new approach, paradoxical or unsatisfactory features associated with the standard approaches, such as the wave-particle duality and the collapse of the wave function, do not arise. Finally, the authors make new suggestions and indicate some areas in which one may expect quantum theory to break down in a way that will allow for a test.
  
  The Undivided Universe is an important book especially because it provides a different overall world view which is neither mechanistic nor reductionist. This view will ultimately have radical implications not only in physics but also in our general approach to all areas of life.

• Thought as a System (1992)
  In Thought as a System, best-selling author David Bohm takes as his subject the role of thought and knowledge at every level of human affairs, from our private reflections on personal identity to our collective efforts to fashion a tolerable civilization.
  
  Elaborating upon principles of the relationship between mind and matter first put forward in Wholeness and the Implicate Order, Professor Bohm rejects the notion that our thinking processes neutrally report on what is `out there' in an objective world. Bohm carefully explores the manner in which thought actively participates in forming our perceptions, our sense of meaning and our daily actions. He suggests that collective thought and knowledge have become so automated that we are in large part controlled by them, with a subsequent loss of authenticity, freedom and order.
  
  In conversations with fifty seminar participants in Ojai, California, David Bohm offers a radical perspective on an underlying source of human conflict and inquires into the possibility of individual and collective transformation.

• Changing Consciousness: Exploring the Hidden Source of the Social, Political and Environmental Crises Facing our World (1991) with Mark Edwards

• On Creativity (1988, 2004), Lee Nichol, ed.
  Creativity is fundamental to human experience. In On Creativity David Bohm, the world-renowned scientist, investigates the phenomenon from all sides.

• Science, Order and Creativity (1987, 2000) with F. David Peat
  How can science, when it is based on a narrow perspective of life, ever understand the essence of natural problems since they occur in a much wider context? In Science, Order & Creativity, David Bohm and F. David Peat present a compelling argument that science, in fact, cannot hope to provide answers when its approach is narrow and fragmented from other disciplines such as philosophy, art, and religion. A revolutionary approach to scientific inquiry, Science, Order & Creativity is an accessible entry into the extraordinary work of one of the century's greatest thinkers, David Bohm.

• The Future of Humanity: A Conversation (1986) with J. Krishnamurti

• The Ending of Time: 13 Dialogues (1985) with Jiddu Krishnamurti

• Unfolding Meaning: A weekend of dialogue with David Bohm (1985, 1996), Donald Factor, ed.
  Bohm discusses with a group of people from various backgrounds his thoughts concerning mind, matter, meaning, the implicate order and a host of other subjects.

• Wholeness and the Implicate Order (1980, 1983)
  In this classic work David Bohm, writing clearly and without technical jargon, develops a theory of quantum physics which treats the totality of existence as an unbroken whole.

• The Special Theory of Relativity (1965)
  In this classic text, David Bohm explores Albert Einstein's celebrated theory of relativity through inspiring and visionary lectures. First published in 1905, Einstein's ideas forever transformed the way we think about time and space. Yet for Bohm the implications of the theory were far more revolutionary both in scope and impact even than this. Stepping back from dense theoretical and scientific detail in this eye-opening work, Bohm describes how the notion of relativity strikes at the heart of our very conception of the universe, whether we are physicists, philosophers or none of the above.

• Problems in the basic concepts of physics (1963)
  An inaugural lecture delivered at Birkbeck College, February 13, 1963.

• Quanta and Reality: A Symposium (1962) with N. R. Hanson and Mary B. Hesse
  Papers from a symposium discussing the physical and philosophical implications of quantum mechanics presented on BBC.

• Causality and Chance in Modern Physics (1957, 1961, 1980)

• Quantum Theory (1951, 1989)
  This advanced undergraduate-level text provides a formulation of the quantum theory in terms of qualitative and imaginative concepts outside classical theory. A broad range of specific applications follows, worked out in considerable mathematical detail. Also included: an examination of the relationship between quantum and classical concepts.

See Also:

• Kalachakra Meditations: Based on the Discussion Between J. Krishnmurti and David Bohm in the Ending of Time (2005) by Ramesh Grover

• Bridging Science and Spirit: Common Elements in David Bohm's Physics, the Perennial Philosophy and Seth (1997) by Norman Friedman

• Infinite Potential: The Life and Times of David Bohm (1996) by F. David Peat

• David Bohm's World: New Physics and New Religion (1993) by Kevin J. Sharpe

• Psychological Perspectives (A Semi-Annual Journal of Jungian Thought, Vol. 19, No. 1, Spring-Summer 1988) (1988) with Aniela Jaffe,  Betty Wheelwright, David Bohm, Rupert Sheldrake, and others.

• Quantum Implications: Essays in Honour of David Bohm (1987), B.J. Hiley and F. David Peat, eds.