Percy W. Bridgman Chosen For Nobel Prize in Physics

Percy Williams Bridgman, Hollis Professor of Mathematics and natural Philosophy, was named as the 1946 Nobel Prize Winner in the field f Physics by the Swedish Academy of Science in Stockholm yesterday.

He was chosen as one of three American awarded Nobel Prized this year. The other two were Emily Greene Balch and Dr. John R. Mott, who shared the Peace prize.

Bridgman was given the award as the result of his life-long studies "within the sphere of high pressure physics," and for his invention of an apparatus producing extremely high pressures.

Last night Bridgman had no comment to make on the award, as congratulatory messages and telegrams began to reach him at his home. He stated, however, that the award could have nothing whatever to do with the work he did for the Government, and dampened rumors that he had been one of the "silent" men behind the creation of the atom bomb by disclosing that his war work had consisted of experiments testing the effects of high pressure on steel used in armor plating. Bridgman deprecated the value of this work and said that it had been discontinued even before the end of the war.

The Nobel Prize winner entered Harvard in 1900 and graduated in 1904, taking his Ph.D. four years later. In 1910 he became an instructor in Physics, followed in 1913 by an associated a full professor, and seven years later received the chair be now holds.

He drew international attention outside of his scientific achievements in 1939 when he announced that scholars of totalitarian states would be barred from his laboratories in order, he said, to make it difficult for those states to get information they might misuse.

He is also the author of several books in his field including "The Physics of High Pressure," "The Logic of Modern Physics," "The nature of Thermodynamics," "The Nature of Physical Theory," and "The Intelligent Individual and Society."