For the American linguist and theologian, see Josiah Willard Gibbs, Sr. For the United States Navy ship, see USNS Josiah Willard Gibbs (T-AGOR-1).
Josiah Willard Gibbs
Born
(1839-02-11)February 11, 1839
New Haven, Connecticut, U.S.
Died
April 28, 1903(1903-04-28) (aged 64)
New Haven, Connecticut, U.S.
Nationality
American
Alma mater
Yale College (BA, PhD)
Known for
List
Statistical mechanics
Chemical thermodynamics
Chemical potential
Cross product
Dyadics
Exergy
Principle of maximum work
Phase rule
Phase space
Physical optics
Physics of phase separation
Statistical ensemble
Surface stress
Vector calculus
Gibbs entropy
Gibbs algorithm
Gibbs distribution
Gibbs' elasticity
Gibbs function
Gibbs free energy
Gibbs' inequality
Gibbs isotherm
Gibbs' H theorem
Gibbs lemma
Gibbs measure
Gibbs paradox
Gibbs phenomenon
Gibbs state
Gibbs' thermodynamic surface
Gibbs vector
Gibbs–Appell equation of motion
Gibbs–Donnan effect
Gibbs–Duhem equation
Gibbs–Helmholtz equation
Gibbs–Marangoni effect
Gibbs–Thomson equation
Gibbs–Thomson effect
Gibbs–Wulff theorem
Awards
Rumford Prize (1880)
ForMemRS (1897)[1]
Copley Medal (1901)
Scientific career
Fields
Chemistry
Mathematics
Physics
Institutions
Yale College
Thesis
On the form of the teeth of wheels in spur gearing(1863)
Doctoral advisor
Hubert Anson Newton
Doctoral students
Edwin Bidwell Wilson Irving Fisher Henry Andrews Bumstead Lynde Wheeler Lee De Forest
Signature
Josiah Willard Gibbs (/ɡɪbz/;[2] February 11, 1839 – April 28, 1903) was an American scientist who made significant theoretical contributions to physics, chemistry, and mathematics. His work on the applications of thermodynamics was instrumental in transforming physical chemistry into a rigorous deductive science. Together with James Clerk Maxwell and Ludwig Boltzmann, he created statistical mechanics (a term that he coined), explaining the laws of thermodynamics as consequences of the statistical properties of ensembles of the possible states of a physical system composed of many particles. Gibbs also worked on the application of Maxwell's equations to problems in physical optics. As a mathematician, he created modern vector calculus (independently of the British scientist Oliver Heaviside, who carried out similar work during the same period) and described the Gibbs phenomenon in the theory of Fourier analysis.
In 1863, Yale University awarded Gibbs the first American doctorate in engineering. After a three-year sojourn in Europe, Gibbs spent the rest of his career at Yale, where he was a professor of mathematical physics from 1871 until his death in 1903. Working in relative isolation, he became the earliest theoretical scientist in the United States to earn an international reputation and was praised by Albert Einstein as "the greatest mind in American history."[3] In 1901, Gibbs received what was then considered the highest honor awarded by the international scientific community, the Copley Medal of the Royal Society of London,[3] "for his contributions to mathematical physics."[4]
Commentators and biographers have remarked on the contrast between Gibbs's quiet, solitary life in turn of the century New England and the great international impact of his ideas. Though his work was almost entirely theoretical, the practical value of Gibbs's contributions became evident with the development of industrial chemistry during the first half of the 20th century. According to Robert A. Millikan, in pure science, Gibbs "did for statistical mechanics and thermodynamics what Laplace did for celestial mechanics and Maxwell did for electrodynamics, namely, made his field a well-nigh finished theoretical structure."[5]
^Cite error: The named reference formemrs was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^"Gibbs, Josiah Willard". Oxford Dictionary of English (3 ed.). Oxford Reference.
^ ab"J. Willard Gibbs". Physics History. American Physical Society. Archived from the original on July 5, 2008. Retrieved June 16, 2012.
^"Copley Medal". Premier Awards. Royal Society. Retrieved June 16, 2012.
^Millikan, Robert A. (1938). "Biographical Memoir of Albert Abraham Michelson, 1852–1931" (PDF). Biographical Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 19 (4): 121–146. Archived (PDF) from the original on October 9, 2022.
and 22 Related for: Josiah Willard Gibbs information
JosiahWillardGibbs (/ɡɪbz/; February 11, 1839 – April 28, 1903) was an American scientist who made significant theoretical contributions to physics,...
oceanographic research ship USNS JosiahWillardGibbs (T-AGOR-1)—named after American scientist JosiahWillardGibbs—and placed in service as a non-commissioned...
of Gibbs free energy, originally called available energy, was developed in the 1870s by the American scientist JosiahWillardGibbs. In 1873, Gibbs described...
ringing artifacts in signal processing. It is named after JosiahWillardGibbs. The Gibbs phenomenon is a behavior of the Fourier series of a function...
The JosiahWillardGibbs Lectureship (also called the Gibbs Lecture) of the American Mathematical Society is an annually awarded mathematical prize, named...
published in March 1902, is a work of scientific literature by JosiahWillardGibbs which is considered to be the foundation of modern statistical mechanics...
was later investigated extensively, in its modern generic form, by JosiahWillardGibbs in 1902. The Boltzmann distribution should not be confused with the...
ensemble as being in "statistical equilibrium". Gibbs algorithm Gibbs measure KMS state Gibbs, JosiahWillard (1902). Elementary Principles in Statistical...
substance in question). This leads to a paradox known as the Gibbs paradox, after JosiahWillardGibbs, who proposed this thought experiment in 1874‒1875. The...
Bidwell Wilson, first published in 1901 and based on the lectures that JosiahWillardGibbs had delivered on the subject at Yale University. The book did much...
Ramamurti Shankar (born April 28, 1947) is the JosiahWillardGibbs professor of Physics at Yale University, in New Haven, Connecticut. He received his...
{\displaystyle F=C-P+2} : 123–125 It was derived by American physicist JosiahWillardGibbs in his landmark paper titled On the Equilibrium of Heterogeneous...
Most of these relations can be dated to founder of vector calculus JosiahWillardGibbs, if not earlier. The magnitude of a vector A can be expressed using...
In mathematics, the Gibbs measure, named after JosiahWillardGibbs, is a probability measure frequently seen in many problems of probability theory and...
August Kekulé von Stradonitz, 1829–1896 Dmitri Mendeleev, 1834–1907 JosiahWillardGibbs, 1839–1903 J. H. van 't Hoff, 1852–1911 William Ramsay, 1852–1916...
in the late 19th century by Ludwig Boltzmann, Henri Poincaré, and JosiahWillardGibbs. In a phase space, every degree of freedom or parameter of the system...
thermodynamic potentials was introduced by Pierre Duhem in 1886. JosiahWillardGibbs in his papers used the term fundamental functions. One main thermodynamic...
phase is a result of variation of mole ratios. A model proposed by JosiahWillardGibbs proposed that the surface phase as an idealized model that had zero...
desired distribution and are usually discarded. Gibbs sampling is named after the physicist JosiahWillardGibbs, in reference to an analogy between the sampling...
and other subjects. One milestone was the publication in 1876 by JosiahWillardGibbs of his paper, On the Equilibrium of Heterogeneous Substances. This...
general polymath. He was the sole protégé of Yale University physicist JosiahWillardGibbs and was mentor to MIT economist Paul Samuelson. Wilson had a distinguished...
Global Information
