Word: bridgman
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...always. In Washington, D.C., Oppenheimer once interrupted a lecture by a slow-moving ex-pupil: "Well, really, this room is full of people who know the answer to this question. Let's get on." *This view does not sit well with many scientists -- among them Nobel Prizewinner Percy Bridgman, Oppenheimer's ol'd Harvard teacher. Says Bridgman: "If anybody should feel guilty, it's God. He put the facts there...
...Harvard, Oppenheimer sought out and apprenticed himself to two great teachers: Physicist Percy Williams Bridgman and the late Philosopher Alfred North Whitehead. He had already made an important discovery: the best way to learn is to find the right person to learn from...
Gruff, honest Bridgman assigned Robert to a project involving a copper-nickel alloy. Oppenheimer built a furnace, made his alloy, completed the study with sufficient precision for Bridgman to publish the findings. Says Bridgman: "A very intelligent student. He knew enough to ask questions." After hours, at the Bridgman home, the conversation ranged far & wide, giving Oppenheimer chances to display his often irritating erudition. Once Bridgman identified a picture as a temple at Segesta, Sicily, built about 400 B.C. Young Oppenheimer quickly set his professor straight: "I judge from the capitals on the columns that it was built about...
Robert sailed for England and another apprenticeship, this time under Lord Rutherford and Sir J. J. Thomson at Cambridge University. Before he left, Bridgman told him: "You cannot be satisfied with just measuring up with other people. You can consider yourself a failure unless you stand out in front...
Future speakers will be Professors Percy W. Bridgman '04, Edwin C. Kemble '17, Clyde C. Kluckhohn, Pitirim A. Sorokin, and Associate Professor Wendell H. Furry...