His father, Raymond Landon Bridgman, was "profoundly religious and idealistic" and worked as a newspaper reporter assigned to state politics.

[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.

[7] This new apparatus led to an abundance of new findings, including a study of the compressibility, electric and thermal conductivity, tensile strength and viscosity of more than 100 different compounds.

Bridgman made many improvements to his high-pressure apparatus over the years, and unsuccessfully attempted the synthesis of diamond many times.

[5] Bridgman was a "penetrating analytical thinker" with a "fertile mechanical imagination" and exceptional manual dexterity.

His suicide note was a mere two sentences; "It isn't decent for society to make a man do this thing himself.

[15][16] Bridgman received Doctors, honoris causa from Stevens Institute (1934), Harvard (1939), Brooklyn Polytechnic (1941), Princeton (1950), Paris (1950), and Yale (1951).