Basil Hiley

Who is Basil Hiley?

Basil J. Hiley, born 1935, is a British quantum physicist and professor emeritus of the University of London. He received the Majorana Prize "Best person in physics" in 2012.

Long-time co-worker of David Bohm, Hiley is known for his work with Bohm on implicate orders and for his work on algebraic descriptions of quantum physics in terms of underlying symplectic and orthogonal Clifford algebras. Hiley co-authored the book The Undivided Universe with David Bohm, which is considered the main reference for Bohm's interpretation of quantum theory.

The work of Bohm and Hiley has been characterized as primarily addressing the question "whether we can have an adequate conception of the reality of a quantum system, be this causal or be it stochastic or be it of any other nature" and meeting the scientific challenge of providing a mathematical description of quantum systems that matches the idea of an implicate order.