Abstract

David Bohm was a long-standing critic of the standard Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics, thus a quantum dissident. He devoted much of his professional time to an alternative interpretation of quantum theory, the causal interpretation. When he suggested it in the early 1950s, research on the foundations of quantum mechanics was viewed with suspicion among physicists, as most of them considered foundational issues already solved by the founders of this physical theory. As time went by, interest in foundational issues widened, indeed it became a regular field for physical research, and Bohm’s works went on to be considered more positively, or at least with more tolerance. Bohm’s work had made an early and lasting impression on Mario Bunge. However, they did not always follow the same approach to the quantum riddles.While this paper deals primarily with the work of Bohm, it contributes to our appreciation of Bunge’s legacy in this area by establishing significant historical background and context to Bunge’s views on Quantum Mechanics and the kinds of resistance the profession tended to offer. In this paper I will examine Bohm’s achievements and how these achievements were received by the public, especially other physicists. I address this subject through the lens of scientometric data, mainly the number of citations of papers over time, adding to these data some qualitative information concerning how these papers were seen by other physicists.