Robert persuaded his physics teacher Percy Bridgman to write a letter of recommendation. In his letter, Bridgman wrote candidly that Oppenheimer had a “perfectly prodigious power of assimilation” but that “his weakness is on the experimental side. His type of mind is analytical, rather than physical, and he is not at home in the manipulations of the laboratory. . . . It appears to me that it is a bit of a gamble as to whether Oppenheimer will ever make any real contributions of an important character, but if he does make good at all, I believe he will be a very unusual success.”
