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Percy Williams Bridgman

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Percy Williams Bridgman
Bridgman in 1946
Born(1882-04-21)April 21, 1882
Cambridge, Massachusetts,U.S.
DiedAugust 20, 1961(1961-08-20)(aged 79)
Randolph, New Hampshire,U.S.
Alma materHarvard University
Known forHigh-pressure physics
Operationalism
Operational definition
AwardsRumford Prize(1917)
Elliott Cresson Medal(1932)
Comstock Prize in Physics(1933)
Nobel Prize in Physics(1946)
Fellow of the Royal Society(1949)[1]
Bingham Medal(1951)
Scientific career
FieldsPhysics
InstitutionsHarvard University
Doctoral advisorWallace Clement Sabine
Doctoral studentsFrancis Birch
Gerald Holton
John C. Slater
Edwin C. Kemble

Percy Williams Bridgman(April 21, 1882 – August 20, 1961) was an Americanphysicistwho received the 1946Nobel Prize in Physicsfor his work on the physics of high pressures. He also wrote extensively on thescientific methodand on other aspects of thephilosophy of science.[2][3][4]TheBridgman effect,theBridgman–Stockbarger technique,and the high-pressure mineralbridgmaniteare named after him.

Biography

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Early life

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Bridgman was born inCambridge, Massachusetts,and grew up in nearbyAuburndale.[5]

Bridgman's parents were both born in New England. His father, Raymond Landon Bridgman, was "profoundly religious and idealistic" and worked as a newspaper reporter assigned to state politics. His mother, Mary Ann Maria Williams, was described as "more conventional, sprightly, and competitive".[5]

Bridgman attended both elementary and high school in Auburndale, where he excelled at competitions in the classroom, on the playground, and while playing chess. Described as both shy and proud, his home life consisted of family music, card games, and domestic and garden chores. The family was deeply religious; reading the Bible each morning and attending aCongregational Church.[5]However, Bridgman later became an atheist.[6]

Education and professional life

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Bridgman enteredHarvard Universityin 1900, and studiedphysicsthrough to hisPhD.From 1910 until his retirement, he taught at Harvard, becoming a full professor in 1919. In 1905, he began investigating the properties of matter underhigh pressure.A machinery malfunction led him to modify his pressure apparatus; the result was a new sealing device enabling him to create pressures eventually exceeding 100,000kgf/cm2(10GPa;100,000atmospheres). This was a huge improvement over previous machinery, which could achieve pressures of only 3,000 kgf/cm2(0.3 GPa).[7]This new apparatus led to an abundance of new findings, including a study of the compressibility, electric andthermal conductivity,tensile strengthandviscosityof more than 100 different compounds.[citation needed]Bridgman is also known for his studies of electrical conduction in metals and properties of crystals. He developed theBridgman sealand is the eponym forBridgman's thermodynamic equations,which were used to further his research.

Bridgman made many improvements to his high-pressure apparatus over the years, and unsuccessfully attempted thesynthesis of diamondmany times.[8]Thehigh-pressure torsionapparatus developed by Bridgman[9]significantly contributed to the development ofsevere plastic deformationfield decades later.[10]

Hisphilosophy of sciencebookThe Logic of Modern Physics(1927) advocatedoperationalismand coined the termoperational definition.In 1938 he participated in the International Committee composed to organise the International Congresses for the Unity of Science.[11]He was also one of the 11 signatories to theRussell–Einstein Manifesto.

J. Robert Oppenheimer,the director of theManhattan Project,was an undergraduate student of Bridgman's. Of his teaching abilities, Oppenheimer said that, “I found Bridgman a wonderful teacher because he never really was quite reconciled to things being the way they were and he always thought them out.”[12]

Home life and death

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Bridgman with wife andGustaf VI Adolf of Swedenin Stockholm in 1946

Bridgman married Olive Ware (1882-1972), ofHartford, Connecticut,in 1912. Ware's father,Edmund Asa Ware,was the founder and first president ofAtlanta University.The couple had two children and were married for nearly 50 years, living most of that time in Cambridge. The family also had a summer home inRandolph, New Hampshire,where Bridgman was known as a skilled mountain climber.[5]

Bridgman was a "penetrating analytical thinker" with a "fertile mechanical imagination" and exceptional manual dexterity. He was a skilled plumber and carpenter, known to shun the assistance of professionals in these matters. He was also fond of music and played the piano, and took pride in his flower and vegetable gardens.[5]

Bridgman committed suicide by gunshot after suffering frommetastaticcancerfor some time. His suicide note was a mere two sentences; "It isn't decent for society to make a man do this thing himself. Probably this is the last day I will be able to do it myself."[13][14]Bridgman's words have been quoted by many in theassisted suicidedebate.[15][16]

Honors and awards

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Bridgman received Doctors,honoris causafromStevens Institute(1934), Harvard (1939),Brooklyn Polytechnic(1941),Princeton(1950),Paris(1950), andYale(1951). He received theBingham Medal(1951) from theSociety of Rheology,theRumford Prizefrom theAmerican Academy of Arts and Sciences(1919), theElliott Cresson Medal(1932) from theFranklin Institute,the Gold Medal from Bakhuys Roozeboom Fund (founderHendrik Willem Bakhuis Roozeboom) (1933) from theRoyal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences,[17]and theComstock Prize(1933) of theNational Academy of Sciences.[18]

Bridgman was a member of theAmerican Physical Societyand was its president in 1942. He was also a member of theAmerican Association for the Advancement of Science,theAmerican Academy of Arts and Sciences,theAmerican Philosophical Society,and theNational Academy of Sciences.He was a Foreign Member of theRoyal Societyand Honorary Fellow of thePhysical Society of London.[citation needed]

ThePercy W. Bridgman House,in Massachusetts, is a U.S.National Historic Landmarkdesignated in 1975.[19]

In 2014, the Commission on New Minerals, Nomenclature and Classification of theInternational Mineralogical Associationapproved the namebridgmaniteforperovskite-structured(Mg,Fe)SiO3,[20]the Earth's most abundant mineral,[21]in honor of his high-pressure research.

Bibliography

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  • — (1922).Dimensional Analysis.New Haven: Yale University Press.OCLC840631.
  • — (1925).A Condensed Collection of Thermodynamics Formulas.Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.OCLC594940689.
  • — (1927).The Logic of Modern Physics.New York: Macmillan.OCLC17522325.[22]Online excerpt.
  • — (1934).The Thermodynamics of Electrical Phenomena in Metals.New York: Macmillan.
  • — (1936).The Nature of Physical Theory.Dover.OCLC1298653.
  • — (1938).The Intelligent Individual and Society.New York: MacMillan.OCLC1488461.
  • — (1941).The Nature of Thermodynamics.Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.ISBN9780844605128.OCLC4614803.
  • — (1949).The Physics of High Pressure.London: G. Bell.OCLC8122603.
  • — (1950).Reflections of a Physicist.New York: Philosophical Library.OCLC583047.[23]
  • — (1952).Studies in large plastic flow and fracture: with special emphasis on the effects of hydrostatic pressure.Metallurgy and metallurgical engineering series. New York: McGraw-Hill.OCLC7435297.
  • — (1959).The Way Things Are.Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.ISBN9780674948303.OCLC40803473.
  • — (1961) [First published separately in 1925 and 1934].Thermodynamics of Electrical Phenomena in Metals and a Condensed Collection of Thermodynamic Formulas.New Haven: Macmillan.OCLC610252150.
  • — (1962).A Sophisticate's Primer of Relativity.Middletown, Conn: Wesleyan University Press.OCLC530615.
  • — (1964).Collected experimental papers.Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.OCLC372237.

See also

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References

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  1. ^Newitt, D. M. (1962)."Percy Williams Bridgman 1882–1961".Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society.8:26–40.doi:10.1098/rsbm.1962.0003.
  2. ^"Percy W. Bridgman".Physics Today.14(10): 78. 1961.doi:10.1063/1.3057180.
  3. ^Bridgman, P. (1914)."A Complete Collection of Thermodynamic Formulas".Physical Review.3(4): 273–281.Bibcode:1914PhRv....3..273B.doi:10.1103/PhysRev.3.273.
  4. ^Bridgman, P. W. (1956). "Probability, Logic, and ESP".Science.123(3184): 15–17.Bibcode:1956Sci...123...15B.doi:10.1126/science.123.3184.15.PMID13281470.
  5. ^abcdeKemble, Edwin C.; Birch, Francis (1970).Percy Williams Bridgman – 1882—1961(PDF).National Academy of Sciences. pp. 25, 26, 27.
  6. ^Ray Monk (2013).Robert Oppenheimer: A Life Inside the Center.Random House LLC.ISBN9780385504133.In many ways they were opposites; Kemble, the theorist, was a devout Christian, while Bridgman, the experimentalist, was a strident atheist.
  7. ^"The Nobel Prize in Physics 1946".
  8. ^Hazen, Robert (1999),The Diamond Makers,Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,ISBN0-521-65474-2
  9. ^Kaveh Edalati, Zenji Horita (2016)."A review on high-pressure torsion (HPT) from 1935 to 1988".Materials Science and Engineering: A.0921–5093: 325–352.doi:10.1016/j.msea.2015.11.074.
  10. ^Edalati, K.; Bachmaier, A.; Beloshenko, V.A.; Beygelzimer, Y.; Blank, V.D.; Botta, W.J.; Bryła, K.; Čížek, J.; Divinski, S.; Enikeev, N.A.; Estrin, Y.; Faraji, G.; Figueiredo, R.B.; Fuji, M.; Furuta, T.; Grosdidier, T.; Gubicza, J.; Hohenwarter, A.; Horita, Z.; Huot, J.; Ikoma, Y.; Janeček, M.; Kawasaki, M.; Krǎl, P.; Kuramoto, S.; Langdon, T.G.; Leiva, D.R.; Levitas, V.I.; Mazilkin, A.; Mito, M.; Miyamoto, H.; Nishizaki, T.; Pippan, R.; Popov, V.V.; Popova, E.N.; Purcek, G.; Renk, O.; Révész, A.; Sauvage, X.; Sklenicka, V.; Skrotzki, W.; Straumal, B.B.; Suwas, S.; Toth, L.S.; Tsuji, N.; Valiev, R.Z.; Wilde, G.; Zehetbauer, M.J.; Zhu, X. (April 2022)."Nanomaterials by severe plastic deformation: review of historical developments and recent advances".Materials Research Letters.10(4): 163–256.doi:10.1080/21663831.2022.2029779.S2CID246959065.
  11. ^Neurath, Otto (1938). "Unified Science as Encyclopedic Integration".International Encyclopedia of Unified Science.1(1): 1–27.
  12. ^Bird, Kai (2006).American Prometheus: the triumph and tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer(1st Vintage books ed.). New York: Vintage.ISBN978-0-307-42473-0.OCLC695567255.
  13. ^Holton, Gerald (February 1, 1962)."Percy Williams Bridgman".Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.18(2): 22–23.Bibcode:1962BuAtS..18b..22H.doi:10.1080/00963402.1962.11454315.RetrievedOctober 20,2021.
  14. ^Nuland, Sherwin.How We Die: Reflections on Life's Final Chapter.Vintage Press, 1995.ISBN0-679-74244-1.
  15. ^Ayn Rand Institute discussion on assisted suicide.Aynrand.org; retrieved January 28, 2012.
  16. ^Euthanasia Research and Guidance Organization.Assistedsuicide.org (June 13, 2003); retrieved 2012-01-28.
  17. ^"Bakhuys Roozeboom Fund laureates".Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences.Archived fromthe originalon August 7, 2011.RetrievedJanuary 13,2011.
  18. ^"Comstock Prize in Physics".National Academy of Sciences. Archived fromthe originalon December 29, 2010.RetrievedFebruary 13,2011.
  19. ^James Sheire (February 1975),National Register of Historic Places Inventory-Nomination: Percy Bridgman House/Bridgman House-Buckingham School(PDF),National Park Service,retrievedJune 22,2009andAccompanying one photo, exterior, from 1975(519 KB)
  20. ^Page on bridgmanite,mindat.org; retrieved June 3, 2014.
  21. ^Murakami, M.; Sinogeikiin S.V.; Hellwig H.; Bass J.D.; Li J. (2007). "Sound velocity of MgSiO3 perovskite to Mbar pressure".Earth and Planetary Science Letters.256(1–2).Elsevier:47–54.Bibcode:2007E&PSL.256...47M.doi:10.1016/j.epsl.2007.01.011.
  22. ^Kovarik, A. F. (1929)."Review:The Logic of Modern Physicsby P. W. Bridgman "(PDF).Bull. Amer. Math. Soc.35(3): 412–413.doi:10.1090/s0002-9904-1929-04767-0.
  23. ^Riepe, D. (1950). "Book Review:Reflections of a Physicist,by P. W. Bridgman ".Popular Astronomy.58:367–368.Bibcode:1950PA.....58..367R.

Further reading

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  • Walter, Maila L., 1991.Science and Cultural Crisis: An Intellectual Biography of Percy Williams Bridgman (1882–1961).Stanford Univ. Press.
  • McMillan, Paul F (2005), "Pressing on: the legacy of Percy W. Bridgman.",Nature Materials,vol. 4, no. 10 (published October 2005), pp. 715–718,Bibcode:2005NatMa...4..715M,doi:10.1038/nmat1488,PMID16195758,S2CID2785280
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