Percy Williams Bridgman

Percy Williams Bridgman committed suicide by shooting himself at his home in Randolph, New Hampshire on August 20, 1961.

He suffered from metastatic cancer for a long time which prompted him to take his own life. The suicide note he left behind had the words ‘It isn’t decent for a society to make a man do this thing himself. Probably this is the last day I will be able to do it myself’.

Percy Williams Bridgman was born in Cambridge, Massachsetts, on April 21, 1882. He was the only child of a newspaper reporter, Raymond Landon Bridgman and Mary ‘Maria’ Ann Williams who was an author of books on public affairs.

His family was highly religious and his father wanted him to join the church but he was more interested in studying science and not religion.

After his family moved to Newton from Cambridge he did his schooling from the ‘Newton North High School’ in Newton, Massachusetts and graduated from there in the year 1900.

He joined the ‘Harvard University’ in 1900 and received his BA degree in physics and mathematics in 1904.

He did his MA in physics from the ‘Harvard University’ in 1905 and received his PhD from the ‘Harvard University’ in 1908.

Percy Williams Bridgman started his career as a lecturer of physics at the ‘Harvard University’ in 1910

He became an assistant professor in 1913 and a full professor in 1919.

He was made a ‘Hollis Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy’ in 1926 by the ‘Harvard University’.

In 1927 he suggested the ‘theory of operationalism’ with which he tried to clear the ambiguities and obscurities found to be inherent in the definition of scientific ideas. He was one of the 11 signatories of the ‘Russell-Einstein Manifesto’.

He became the President of the ‘American Physical Society’ in 1942.

He wrote a number of books including ‘Dimensional Analysis’, ‘The Logic of Modern Physics’, ‘The Physics of High Pressure’, ‘The Thermodynamics of Electrical Phenomenon in Metals’, ‘The Nature of Physical Theory’, ‘The Intelligent Individual and Society’ and ‘The Nature of Thermodynamics’.

He published his memoirs ‘Reflections of a Physicist’ in 1950 and the ‘Collected Experimental Papers’ were published in 7 volumes in 1964.