ABSTRACT

I imagine experimental physicists must oµen look with envy at men like Kamerlingh Onnes, who discovered a ¢eld like low temperature, which seems to be bottomless and in which one can go down and down. Such a man is then a leader and has some temporary monopoly in a scienti¢c adventure. Percy Bridgman, in designing a way to obtain higher pressures, opened up another new ¢eld and was able to move into it and to lead us all along. ¡e development of ever-higher vacuum was a continuing development of the same kind.