Bridgman, Nobel Physicist, Plans to Retire This Year

Percy Williams Bridgman '04, Nobel Prize Physicist and Higgins University Professor, will retire at the end of this academic year, it was announced yesterday.

Bridgman has been at the University as student and teacher for 54 years.

The 72-year-old scientist is known for his pioneering research in high pressures and for his contributions to thermo-dynamical theory and the philosophy of science. His investigations of the changes that occur in various materials when they are subjected to high pressure have given new insight into the properties of matter.

In addition to the Nobel Prize in Physics, which he won in 1946. Bridgman has received the Rumford Medal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Cresson Medal of the Franklin Institute. His other honors included the Roozeboom Medal, the Comstock Prize, and the Research Corporation Award.

The University awarded him an honorary degree of Doctor of Science in 1939, with the citation: "An experimentalist who transforms stubborn matter by high pressure; a logician who alters physical theory by acute analysis."

Bridgman entered the College in 1900, received his A.B. degree in 1904, his A.M. in 1905, and his Ph.D. in 1908. In 1926 he was appointed Hollis Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy and in 1951 he was made a University Professor. The latter capacity has entitled him to teach and carry out research in any department or school of the University.

Bridgman's career in the study of high pressures represents one of the few examples in physics of a "one-man" development of an important research field. He has published many original measurements of physical properties, including those of gases, liquids, and solids.