Bohm was one of the most important theoretical physicists of the 20th century and contributed innovative and unorthodox ideas to quantum theory, neuropsychology and the philosophy of mind. It was said that Einstein called him his “spiritual son”.

He was appointed Professor of Theoretical Physics at Birkbeck in 1961, where he remained until he retired in 1987. Bohm laid the foundations for the modern understanding of plasma, the gas of ions and electrons, and developed a mathematical formula to explain how, as free particles, electrons could coordinate their movements. He argued that quantum theory predicted “entanglement”: two entangled particles appear to have a “direct interaction between them” irrespective of their distance apart.

An early systems thinker, Bohm blamed fragmented thinking about the problems of the environment for the “destruction of forests and agricultural lands”, deserts, and “the melting of the ice caps”. He lamented the fact that too many scientists believed that the solution could be found only in the study of ecology. He died too soon (in 1992) to be recognised for the Nobel Prize in physics.