The American experimental physicist Percy Williams Bridgman (1882-1961) was a pioneer in investigating the effects of enormous pressures on the behavior of matter--solid, liquid, and gas.

Percy Bridgman was born in Cambridge, Mass., on April 21, 1882, the son of Raymond Landon and Mary Ann Maria Williams Bridgman. At high school in Newton, Mass., he was led into the field of science by the influence of one of his teachers.

Bridgman received his doctorate from Harvard University in 1908 and remained there as a research fellow in physics. He married Olive Ware in 1912, with whom he had a daughter and a son. By 1919 he rose to a full professorship, and 7 years later the university appointed him Hollis professor of mathematics and natural philosophy.

In 1946 Bridgman received the Nobel Prize in physics. He was a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and at one time served as president of...