Josiah Willard Gibbs
1839-1903
Born 1839, New Haven, Connecticut; lived on High Street, now in the middle of Yale University. Yale undergraduate 1854-58. Ph.D. in engineering, Sheffield Scientific School at Yale, 1863, the third year the Ph.D. was offered in the United States. Tutor at Yale, 1863-66. Attended lectures at the Sorbonne and Collège de France, Fall, 1866 (lectures by Chasles, Darboux, Liouville, Serret, Duhamel, Delauney, Seritin). Berlin, 1867 (Weirstrass, Kummer, Kronecker, Magnus). Physics at Heidelberg, 1868-69. Professor of Mathematical Physics at Yale 1871-1903 (without salary from 1871 to 1880 when Johns Hopkins tried to hire him). Elected to National Academy of Sciences, 1879, also American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Worked on thermodynamics, 1871-1878. Introduced geometrical methods, thermodynamic surfaces, criteria for equilibrium. Methods taken up by Maxwell, regarded as essential. Complete treatment of phase equilibrium of heterogeneous substances. Introduced Gibbs free energy, other thermodynamic potentials in analysis of equilibrium. Work widely known and appreciated in Europe, the center of physics research at the time. Developed modern vector calculus, used in electromagnetic theory (Maxwell used components or quaternions), studied electromagnetic theory of light, optics. Changed research emphasis from thermodynamic to statistical methods. Noted Gibbs' paradox in statistical mechanics, 1876. Introduced Gibbs principle for statistical entropy, canonical, microcanonical statistical distributions, 1884. Analyzed Gibbs phenomenon in the convergence of Fourier series, 1898 (now seen in the lab in attempts to make waveforms with sharp steps). 1902 published Elementary Principles of Statistical Mechanics, set foundations of statistical mechanics.
Died 1903, buried in Grove Street Cemetery, New Haven, at edge of Yale campus.
For a more complete description of Gibbs' career, see Martin J. Klein, The Physics of Willard Gibbs in his time, Physics Today, September, 1990.