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Physics

The work of the scientists described above covers a common area of discovery here termed the holonomic paradigm. The data from physics that is most important concerns nonlocal hidden variables enfolded into the vacuum but not contained within the familiar four dimensions of space and time. In Bohm's theory spacetime is one dimension of a physical system, supplemented by a perpendicular axis representing spectral coordinates. The physical system is therefore said to be plotted on two orthogonal coordinates defining a Hilbert space. Physical systems reduce to an ensemble of points in this transformed Hilbert space associated with Bohm's implicate order, from which the observable system arises within space and time, the explicate order.

According to Bohm, the physical world one observes is an explication of this broader, transformed ensemble. The entire ensemble can not be explicated. Furthermore, some explications of the implicate order are mutually exclusive, bearing directly upon the familiar complementarity relationships of quantum physics. The explicate order is organized by and derived from this greater whole. There is a top down processing of order from the implicate image into the explicate system. It will be seen in a later section that the top down constraint is directly related to dynamics described in chaos theory.

Bohm's theory is difficult to contrast with Bohr's Copenhagen interpretation of quantum theory since the predictions are typically identical. One exception is the role that Bohm assigns to the magnetic vector potential assumed to be purely imaginary numbers by Bohr, corresponding to nothing real, but descriptive of the implicate order according to Bohm. The demonstration that this potential field is physically effective (e.g., Aharonov & Bohm, 1959) has been a topic of considerable debate but in general favors Bohm's theory over Bohr's. There are various descriptions of Bohm's theory that provide greater detail than can be given here.