Basil J. Hiley
(1935-)
Basil Hiley was the chief collaborator of
David Bohm, since the early 1960's, when Bohm became the chair of theoretical physics at Birkbeck College and Hiley an assistant lecturer.
In the late 1970's Hiley and his computer assistants prepared visualizations of interference in the
two-slit experiment, based on Bohm's "quantum potential" (or information potential).
In Bohmian Mechanics, a quantum particle is riding on the "pilot-wave" function so it travels through just one of the slits, but the probabilities reflect the fact that two slits are open.
Bohm's quantum potential is said to move or change faster than light speed. In our information philosophy analysis, the wave function is just our knowledge about probabilities of locating a particle, so these probabilities change instantly when we acquire new information, for example when a particle is detected.
Once the particle is absorbed by the detection screen, its probability of being anywhere else becomes zero. This leads to the subjective view that the wave function "
collapses." Objectively, nothing moves at greater than light speed, as
Albert Einstein feared would make quantum mechanics conflict with relativity.
In 1993 Bohm and Hiley completed their important book,
The Undivided Universe, just before Bohm's death. It is a major defense of Bohmian Mechanics, which combines contributions from Bohm,
Louis de Broglie, and
John Bell.
The Undivided Universe
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