Biographical

Scope and Content

Material from 1933-1996, received in 1997
This material was received from Professor B.J. Hiley, via Birkbeck, University of London, in 1997.We would also like to thanks Dr Olival Freire Jr for his advice and making available photocopies of material held in Brazil.

Section A: Biographical (A1-A130)
There is significant biographical material in the collection. It spans 1933-1996. There is material relating to the impact of Bohm's ideas on others. There are also obituaries and tributes, interviews, discussions and Dialogues with Bohm, including those at Ojai, California. Bohm's ideas attracted much interest and there are significant number of articles and papers inspired by him. Material directly recording his life and career is comparatively slight but there are papers relating to Bohm's difficulties with the House Committee on Un-American Activities 1949-1951. There is a list of Bohm's publications at A.130.

Supplementary catalogue - material from 1933 - 2005, received in 2006
This material was received from Professor B.J. Hiley, via Birkbeck College London, in November 2006.
This material, which spans 1933-2005, forms a valuable additional resource for the study of Bohm's life and thought. There are some documents that directly relate to material presented in the 1997 catalogue outline above. The catalogue entries in this volume have been numbered to follow on from the earlier catalogue.

Section A: Biographical (A131-A134)
This includes a copy of the Royal Society biographical memoir of Bohm, additional interviews and dialogues material, including a series of contributions to the magazine Revision, and some additional material relating to the Ojai Dialogues of 1989. There are further articles about Bohm showing the continuing interest his life and ideas inspired. Life and career material includes documentation of his election to the Fellowship of the Royal Society including letters of congratulation. The original catalogue contained a solitary letter of congratulation, from Brian Josephson, which reinforced the picture of him as a loner shunned by the mainstream scientific establishment. The addition to this of congratulations from figures such as Lord Flowers, Sir Roger Penrose and Abdus Salam indicates the high regard in which he was widely held. The section also has a little personal correspondence, which includes documentation of visits to North America in the 1970s and 1980s, and material relating to his wife Saral Bohm that shows her promoting her husband's ideas after his death.