If you are not immediately redirected, please click here
Mullet, Shawn.
Political Science: the red scare as the hidden variable in the Bohmian interpretation of quantum theory / by Shawn Mullet, 1999.
Author argues for additional historical contingencies, beyond simple chronology, to explain the precedence of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum theory over Bohm's hidden variables interpretation. Bohm's political affiliation with the Communist party in 1942-1943, the Red Scare, and appearance before the House Un-American Activities Committee were important considerations. Paper focuses in first section on Bohm's career through his time at Princeton University, then his relocation to Brazil, where he proposed his hidden variables interpretation in 1952. This isolation from the scientific community also affected the reception of his ideas, and the second section addresses questions about the philosophy of science.
David Bohm was a physicist and quantum theorist. He worked on the Manhattan Project at the Berkeley Radiation Laboratory until 1946, then appointed assistant professor at Princeton University. In 1950 he was charged with contempt of Congress after pleading the Fifth Amendment when called upon to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee. He was acquitted the following year, and moved to Brazil to take a Chair in Physics at the University of Sao Paul in 1951, then moving to Israel in 1955. In 1957 he moved to the UK, and in 1961 became a professor of theoretical physics at Birkbeck College, London.
Bohm, David, 1917-1992
Mullet, Shawn.
Princeton University
United States. Congress. House. Committee on Un-American Activities
Cold War
Communism and intellectuals.
Philosophy and science.
Quantum theory
Biography files. aat
Theses. aat aat
Physicists. lcsh
AIP-ICOS
American Institute of Physics. Niels Bohr Library & Archives. One Physics Ellipse, College Park, MD 20740, USA
Catalog