The Science of David Bohm: Physicist Who Wouldn't Leave Reality Alone

David Bohm had a problem with reality. Not that reality had done anything particularly offensive to him. It existed reliably, kept gravity turned on most days, and generally prevented refrigerators from wandering through walls. Bohm's problem was that the explanation physicists were giving for reality didn't completely satisfy him. Quantum mechanics worked extraordinarily well, but when Bohm asked what all the mathematics meant about what was actually happening down there, the answers had a tendency to become philosophical very quickly.This bothered him.Bohm was not a fellow who could comfortably accept, "Don't worry about what it means; the equations work." He wanted to know what was happening when nobody was measuring it. Was an electron actually somewhere? Was there a real physical process beneath quantum probabilities? Was the universe fundamentally made of separate objects, or were those apparently separate objects more like temporary ripples in something much larger?These are dangerous questions for a physicist because they tend to ruin perfectly good weekends.