Willard Gibbs

:For Josiah Willard Gibbs, Sr. see Willard Gibbs (linguist)

Biography

Early years

Gibbs was born in New Haven, Connecticut, where his father was a professor of sacred literature at Yale University's Divinity School, best known today for his involvement in the Amistad trial. (Though his father was also named Josiah Willard, he is not referred to as "Josiah Willard Gibbs, Jr.") Gibbs attended Hopkins School and Yale College of Yale University, receiving prizes in mathematics and Latin. Gibbs was the seventh in a long line of American academics stretching back to the 17th century. He graduated, high in his class, in 1858.

Related Topics:
New Haven - Connecticut - His father - Yale University - Amistad - Hopkins School - Mathematics - Latin - 1858

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Middle years

Gibbs continued his studies at Yale, gaining his Ph.D. degree in 1863. This was the first engineering doctorate granted in the United States. He then tutored in Yale College: two years in Latin and a year in what was then called "natural philosophy." In 1866 he went to Europe to study, spending one year each at Paris, Berlin, and Heidelberg, where he was influenced by the luminaries Kirchhoff and Helmholtz. These three years were almost the only time he was ever away from the New Haven area.

Related Topics:
Ph.D. degree - 1863 - Engineering - Natural philosophy - 1866 - Europe - Paris - Berlin - Heidelberg - Kirchhoff - Helmholtz

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In 1869 he returned to Yale and, in 1871, he was appointed Professor of Mathematical Physics. This was the first professorship in mathematical physics in the United States. It was unpaid, in part because Gibbs had never published.

Related Topics:
1869 - 1871 - Mathematical Physics

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Gibbs then started work on the development and presentation of his theory of thermodynamics. In 1873, Gibbs published a paper on the geometric representation of thermodynamic quantities. This paper inspired Maxwell to make (with his own hands) a plaster cast illustrating Gibbs' construct (which he sent to Gibbs and which Yale still retains with great pride).

Related Topics:
Thermodynamics - 1873 - Geometric - Maxwell

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Gibbs next published the paper "On the Equilibrium of Heterogeneous Substances", which clearly revealed the genius of its author. This appeared in two installments in 1876 and 1878. Gibbs' papers on heterogeneous equilibria included:

Related Topics:
1876 - 1878

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• Some chemical potential concepts
• Some free energy concepts
• A Gibbsian ensemble ideal (basis of the statistical mechanics field)
• A phase rule

Later years

In 1880, Gibbs was offered a $3000 salary by the new Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland and Yale responded by offering him $2000, which seemingly was enough to keep him in New Haven.

Related Topics:
1880 - Johns Hopkins University - Baltimore, Maryland

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From 1880 to 1884, Gibbs combined the ideas of the Irish mathematician William Rowan Hamilton on quaternions and the German Hermann Grassmann's Theory of Extension (Ausdehnungslehre) to produce the mathematical field of vector analysis (co-independent formulation; Oliver Heaviside also developed this field). Gibbs designed this to suit the purposes of mathematical physics.

Related Topics:
1884 - Irish - Mathematician - William Rowan Hamilton - Quaternion - German - Hermann Grassmann - Vector analysis - Oliver Heaviside - Mathematical physics

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From 1882 to 1889, Gibbs researched optics, developing a new electrical theory of light. Gibbs also completed his vector analysis during this time. He deliberately avoided theorizing on the structure of matter, developing a theory of more generality than any type of matter composition would imply. After 1889, Gibbs produced milestone textbooks on statistical mechanics, which were published by Yale in 1902.

Related Topics:
1882 - 1889 - Optics - Statistical mechanics - 1902

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Other areas Gibbs contributed to include crystallography and the determinism of planetary and comet orbits, the latter by application of his vector methods.

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Gibbs never married, but lived with his sister and brother-in-law. His brother-in-law was librarian at Yale and publisher of the Transactions of the Connecticut Academy of Sciences, the little read journal which published most of Gibbs' work.

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Death and afterwards

Gibbs remained at Yale until his death in 1903. Since Gibbs died shortly after the inauguration of the Nobel Prizes, he never won a Nobel. However, his receipt of the Copley Medal of the Royal Society of the United Kingdom is regarded as the highest honor available at the time from the international scientific community.

Related Topics:
1903 - Nobel Prize - Copley Medal - Royal Society - United Kingdom

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