At Lawrence's Reunion Convocation on June 21, 2003, Erlan Bliss, '63, offered these remarks in memory of J. Bruce Brackenridge, professor emeritus of physics, who died May 3, 2003.
In September of 1959, my classmates and I started on our four-year Lawrence adventure. In that same September, J. Bruce Brackenridge began his more-than-40-year Lawrence career.
We knew him first as our physics professor. In class, he used a "think-it-through" style. At the board, he derived the consequences of the laws of physics and demonstrated the connections between them. In so doing, he rejected the notion of a canned and polished performance in favor of exposing the thought process. Occasionally this required acknowledging a wrong turn and the resulting need to try again. This approach delivered a subtle but powerful message. Our relationship would not be between the distant, all-knowing professor and students who were left to figure it out if they could; it was to be a shared process of participation, persistence, and ultimate success.
Some of us were also to know Dr. Brackenridge as a Freshman Studies teacher. While he may not have been the teacher of our particular section, the fact that he was participating delivered another message, perhaps the core message of a liberal arts education — that, even though we may focus our efforts in a particular field, each of us has the potential and the responsibility for participation in the broader community and for the acquisition of general knowledge. Over the years, his participation in Freshman Studies included serving as both chair of the selection committee and director of the program.
We were to see later, as his professional interests broadened into the history of science, that Professor Brackenridge illustrated for us the potential for growth and lifelong learning that we can all benefit from discovering. It is said that a student's inquiry, "How did Newton ever think of that?" and a growing interest in the writings of other early scientists led him into serious and extended research on Newton's principal work, The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. In the years that followed, he detailed Newton's mathematics, published his findings, and in 1995 authored a book, The Key to Newton's Dynamics. When he introduced students to Newton's Laws, they were getting it from the source.
Dr. Brackenridge personified the advantages of a Lawrence education. He was accessible to his students and took a personal interest in their future. He encouraged me, for example, to go on to graduate school, a possibility that I had not previously considered. He recognized the value of diverse interests and accepted that this could lead to some conflicts. It could entail, for example, leaving the afternoon physics lab a little early, to make band practice. He approved.
He extended his own horizons and those of his students. In the process, he became director of Lawrence's London Centre, one of the university's opportunities for students to look and live beyond the boundaries of the campus.
In the ever-unfinished history of our school, the lifelong contributions of J. Bruce Brackenridge have taken their place in the foundations upon which Lawrence will continue to build. His first students have long since benefited from his well-taught lessons, and the extension of his dedicated efforts will continue for years in the accomplishments and memories of those whom he taught. — Erlan Bliss, '63, physicist, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory