Quantum theory

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1. rramadassSep 2026
   Quite independently of the Mathematics, Bohm's ideas of "Implicate and Explicate Order" are very interesting and comprehensible by the layman at a high-level - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Implicate_and_explicate_order

   In particular, students of Hindu Philosophical Schools will find lots of parallels here. Bohm was heavily influenced by Jiddu Krishnamurti which inspired his take on quantum theory.

   Bohm also wrote a great book, "Quantum Theory" based on the Copenhagen Interpretation which contains separate parts on "Physical Formulation" and "Mathematical Formulation" of quantum theory.

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2. capn_duckAug 2022
   Wow, I feel like this article was written for me. I too just recently stumbled upon the significance of Planck's work while reading David Bohm's "Quantum Theory". It was such a pleasing thing and wasn't too difficult to follow at all. It uses classical electrodynamics to get an expression for the energy contained in the box with respect to frequency, which of course disagrees with experiment. Then he supposes that energy could only be transferred in certain chunks, and uses statistical mechanics to show what the new distribution looks like.

   As you say, the existence of photons wasn't immediately jumped to. All that he deduces is that energy transfer must be quantized, and this is the real insight of quantum mechanics, but it gets lost in the woo-ey clickbaity world of modern pop sci.

   It was so nice to read the derivation from the point of view of a contemporary 20th century physicist, made me want to start reading a bunch of other 20th century physics papers in their original form.

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3. LolWolfJul 2018
   Hmm... both Messiah and Sakurai are usually at the graduate level. If you're fairly strong in math I'd recommend Messiah, but I can't recall off the top of my head whether there is a good chunk of physical knowledge expected. IIRC, it's a more axiomatic approach than most QM textbooks, so I'd pick this up (I believe Dover has a cheap version, but it's also available on PDF in most places).

   The usual undergraduate textbook that people recommend is Griffiths, though I definitely disagree with its usefulness (the book often opts for doing a bunch of calculations to 'get the intuition,' as opposed to explaining some points clearly, which is fine but I dislike this approach).

   If you're up for a fantastic, but quite dense, reading, Bohm's Quantum Theory holds a special place in my heart for its brilliant motivation and fairly clear exposition of foundational QM (note that it doesn't concern itself with the notion of Bohmian mechanics at all). This book sits on my bookshelf with hundreds of notes all over its pages. Of course, there is a good chunk of physics expected to be able to read this book, but you should skim it and skip to the chapters of interest as a good reference !

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4. hilbert42Aug 2022
   David Bohm is an interesting physicist, he often gets 'eggs' chucked at him for his Pilot Wave interpretation of QM but that shows he was a lateral thinker trying to find an explanation for one of physics' most intractable problems. But he was no lightweight either as we've seen with his work on the Aharonov–Bohm effect.

   That said, I'm ashamed to say I've not had a copy of his book Quantum Theory in my hands. You're one of many I've seen mention it in recent times so I'll have to remedy that. :-)

   Incidentally, I have read the original Aharonov–Bohm paper. Understanding that physics I reckon is crucial to getting a good handle on EM, potentials, etc.

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