TITLE:                    Bohmian Mechanics Without Pilot Waves

ABSTRACT:

In David Bohm's causal/trajectory interpretation of quantum
mechanics, a physical system is regarded as consisting of BOTH
a particle AND a wavefunction, where the latter `pilots'' the
trajectory evolution of the former. In this presentation, we show that  it is
possible to discard the pilot wave concept altogether, thus developing a
complete mathematical formulation of time-dependent quantum
mechanics directly in terms of real-valued trajectories alone. Moreover,
by introducing a kinematic definition of the quantum potential, a  generalized
action extremization principle can be derived. The latter places very  severe
a priori restrictions on the set of allowable theoretical structures  for a dynamical
theory, which is shown to include both classical mechanics and quantum
mechanics, and a few other possibilities.  Beneficial numerical  ramifications
of the above, `trajectories only''  approach are also discussed.