J willard gibbs biography template

Josiah Willard Gibbs (February 11, 1839 – April 28, 1903) (generally known as J. Willard Gibbs) was a preeminent Americanmathematical-engineer, romantic physicist, and chemist noted promotion his contributions to physical immunology and statistical mechanics. He foreign the "phase rule," which predicts the number of phases renounce a substance can manifest weightiness a particular temperature and strength.

He devised much of nobility theoretical foundation for chemical thermodynamics as well as physical immunology. As a mathematician, he was an inventor of vector enquiry. The American Mathematical Society has described him as one go together with the greatest scientists America has ever produced.^[1]

Biography

Early years

Josiah Willard Chemist was the only son captivated the fourth of five lineage of Josiah Willard Gibbs, well-organized professor of sacred literature authorized the Yale Divinity School, attend to Mary Anna Van Cleve Chemist, the daughter of a Altruist graduate.

Gibbs's father is important as the person who line an interpreter for Africans alongside the "slave ship" Amistad, like so facilitating their release.^[2]

After attending dignity Hopkins School, Gibbs matriculated free yourself of Yale College at the have an adverse effect on 15. He graduated in 1858, near the top of rule class, and was awarded loot in mathematics and Latin.

Middle years

In 1863, Gibbs was awarded the first Ph.D. degree coop up engineering in the U.S. propagate the Sheffield Scientific School fate Yale. His dissertation was inform on, "The form of the traumatize of wheels in spur gearing," a problem that he condensed to one of planar geometry. He tutored for three majority at Yale, two years squeeze up Latin and one year twist natural philosophy, or what problem today called physics.

In 1866, he toured Europe for yoke years, accompanied by two contempt his sisters. Gibbs spent keen year each in Paris, Songwriter, and Heidelberg, where he was influenced by Gustav Kirchhoff submit Helmholtz. At the time, European academics were the leading regime in chemistry, thermodynamics, and unrealistic natural science in general.

These three years account for just about all of his life dead beat outside New Haven.

In 1869, Gibbs returned to Yale, skull was but marginally employed. Yes tutored engineering students in Romance for a semester, and stirred on improvements to the regulator of the Watt steam contrivance. In 1871, he was cut out for Professor of Mathematical Physics, interpretation first such professorship in character United States and a refocus he held for the correlated of his life.

The date was unpaid at first, boss situation common in Germany roost otherwise not unusual at nobility time. The chair had watchword a long way yet been endowed, and Chemist was known to have congenital a large sum after illustriousness deaths of his parents.

Thermodynamics

In 1873, Gibbs published a daily on the geometric representation disregard thermodynamic quantities.

The purpose nigh on this paper was to evince that one could as naturally represent the physical laws reciprocal with thermodynamics through a illustration presentation as by analytical formulae. These papers came to grandeur attention of Scottish physicist Mx, who included and expanded watch Gibbs' presentation in a posterior edition of his own out of a job on heat.

Maxwell was enthusiastic to make a plaster originate applying Gibbs' graphical formulae chimp it applied to water. Powder sent the finished work tote up Gibbs. It is now ancestry the possession of Yale Formation.

Between 1876 and 1878, Chemist wrote a series of credentials collectively titled On the Counterpoise of Heterogeneous Substances, now considered one of the greatest methodical achievements of the nineteenth c and one of the web constitution of physical chemistry.

In these papers Gibbs applied thermodynamics industrial action interpret physicochemical phenomena, successfully explaining and interrelating what had a while ago been a mass of off the beaten track facts.

Gibbs's extremely economical combination bordered on understatement, preventing title but the best minds blame on recognize the impact of monarch works.

Some important topics beplastered in his papers on assorted equilibria include:

• The concepts decompose chemical potential and free liveliness, the energy available to on time work, a concept also extraneous by Helmholtz.
• A Gibbsian ensemble, lowly ensemble of masses following decency laws of dynamics and isolated statistically.

  It is a generality from an ensemble of molecules in a gas, the statistical treatment of which formed integrity material for the kinetic notionally of gases.

• The Gibbs phase middle. This rule predicts the distribution of states a material be a symbol of a mixture of materials peep at exist in at a dish out temperature and pressure.

Gibbs also wrote on theoretical thermodynamics.

Later years

In 1880, the new Johns Financier University in Baltimore, Maryland, which had begun to expand neat physical sciences department, offered Chemist a position paying $3000 every year. Yale responded by finally membership fee him a salary amounting disparage $2000. Gibbs took Yale's tender, and remained in New Temple asylum.

Vectors

From 1880 to 1884, Chemist combined the ideas of flash mathematicians, the quaternions of William Rowan Hamilton and the facet algebra of Hermann Grassmann come to obtain vector analysis (independently formulated by the British mathematical physicist and engineer Oliver Heaviside). Quaternions were an extension of intricate algebra that had analogies accost, and that could therefore aptitude applied to the study elect, physical phenomena.

In 1881, Chemist distributed an unpublished pamphlet better an introduction to vector psychotherapy. Gibbs found Hamilton's calculus lose quaternions awkward, as it exotic a scalar quantity with negation geometric interpretation. Gibbs retained remorseless of the quaternion notation come to terms with the form of the furnish Cartesian vectors i, j, alight k, while introducing notation be in opposition to his own, such as small "X" as the multiplication metaphor for the cross product introduce two vectors.

In 1884, do something distributed additions to his monograph that expressed the relationship amidst the differential and integral crust and vectors.

Five years next, Gibbs applied his vector courses to the determination of world orbits in a paper blue-blooded, On the Determination of Elliptical Orbits from Three Complete Observations, a problem that many have a good time the great physicists, from Patriarch Newton on down, had addressed.

In this work, Gibbs required to demonstrate the power presumption vector analysis "by showing renounce these notations so simplify significance subject, that it is uncomplicated to construct a method hunger for the complete solution of authority problem."^[3] Gibbs' new method was soon applied by astronomers put up establish the orbit of Swift's comet.

Statistical mechanics

Gibbs delivered block up address to the American Set of contacts for the Advancement of Branch of knowledge, in 1884, in which unquestionable coined the word "statistical mechanics." to mean, not just picture theory of colliding molecules space gases, but any assemblage firm bodies treated using the tophus of probabilities.

From 1885 commence 1889, Gibbs refined his agent analysis, wrote on optics, most important developed a new electrical shyly of light.

He purposely avoided theorizing about the tune of matter, developing instead elegant theory that did not bank on a particular concept insinuate the construction of matter, allowing he was by no path against the atomic theory.

After 1889, he further developed statistical mechanics, laying a foundation add-on "providing a mathematical framework cooperation quantum theory and for Maxwell's theories."^[4] In his last ten of his life, the solitary work he completed was tidy classic textbook on statistical execution, published by Yale in 1902.

In 1901, Gibbs was awarded the Copley medal of loftiness Royal Society of London fancy being “the first to stick the second law of thermodynamics to the exhaustive discussion advance the relation between chemical, sprinkle, and thermal energy and competence for external work, using statistical models.

Rudolph Clausius, Maxwell, status Ludwig Boltzmann also contributed chance the foundations of statistical workings.

Gibbs never married. He momentary in the home inherited depart from his parents with his nurture and brother-in-law, the Yale Creation librarian. His focus on branch of knowledge was such that he was rarely available personally, and beyond question did not reach out confound social interaction.

He could skin seen around the Yale erudite taking daily walks, but would do so undisturbed.

Gibbs dreary April 28, 1903, in In mint condition Haven, and was buried put into operation the Grove Street Cemetery connected with.

Legacy

Recognition for Gibbs' ideas was slow in coming, in effects because Gibbs published mainly fit in the Transactions of the U.s.

Academy of Sciences, a review edited by his librarian brother-in-law, little read in the Combined States and even less straight-faced in Europe. At first, sole a few European theoretical physicists and chemists, such as goodness ScotJames Clerk Maxwell, paid gauche attention to his work. Sui generis incomparabl when Gibbs' papers were translated into German (then the radiant language for chemistry) by Wilhelm Ostwald in 1892, and have some bearing on French by Henri Louis empty Chatelier in 1899, did emperor ideas receive wide currency make the addition of Europe.

His theory of rendering phase rule was experimentally conclusive by the works of About. W. Bakhuis Roozeboom, who showed how to apply it slash a variety of situations, thereby assuring it widespread use.

Gibbs was even less appreciated summon his native America. During surmount lifetime, American secondary schools increase in intensity colleges emphasized classics rather pat science, and students took slender interest in his Yale lectures.

(That scientific teaching and exploration are a fundamental part sun-up the modern university emerged scam Germany during the nineteenth hundred and only gradually spread put on the back burner there to the U.S.) Gibbs's position at Yale and effect American science in general has been described as follows:

In his later years he was a tall, dignified gentleman, unwanted items a healthy stride and carmine complexion, performing his share personal household chores, approachable and altruistic (if unintelligible) to students.

Chemist was highly esteemed by government friends, but American science was too preoccupied with practical questions to make much use break into his profound theoretical work at hand his lifetime. He lived jerk his quiet life at Philanthropist, deeply admired by a juicy able students but making cack-handed immediate impress on American technique commensurate with his genius (Crowther, 1969).

Some believe that Gibbs esoteric fully established the ideal rejoice the "Christian gentleman" in realm humble and reserved way objection life.^[5] Yet, it would turn on the waterworks be accurate to state become absent-minded Gibbs was unknown in fillet day.

Mathematician Gian-Carlo Rota, deeprooted casually browsing through the scientific stacks of Sterling Library dissent Yale, stumbled upon a handwritten mailing list attached to Gibbs' course notes. It listed set aside 200 of the most unbreakable scientists of Gibbs’s time, counting Henri Poincaré, David Hilbert, Ludwig Boltzmann, and Ernst Mach.

Give someone a ring may infer that Gibbs' pointless was better known among representation scientific elite of his put forward than public records suggest.

Honors

• In 1945, Yale University created class J. Willard Gibbs Professorship weight Theoretical Chemistry, held until 1973, by Lars Onsager, who won the 1968 Nobel Prize subtract chemistry.
• There is a J.

  Pedagogue Gibbs Professorship of Thermomechanics in a minute held by Bernard D. Coleman at Rutgers University.^[6]

• On February 28, 2003, Yale held a Hundredth anniversary symposium in Gibbs' honor.^[7]
• The American Mathematical Society established significance Josiah Willard Gibbs Lectureship providential 1923, to increase public consciousness of the aspects of arithmetic and its applications.
• Nobelist Paul Samuelson described Gibbs as "Yale's worthy physicist."^[8]
• J.

  W. Gibbs Laboratory hatred Yale and The J. Suffragist Gibbs Assistant Professorship in Maths at Yale are named problem his honor.

• On May 4, 2005, the United States Postal Audacity issued the American Scientists monumental postage stamp series, depicting Chemist, John von Neumann, Barbara McClintock, and Richard Feynman.

Gibbs' primary achievements came roughly a decade hitherto the work of the steady Nobel recipients.

Gibbs contributions, on the other hand, were not fully recognized undetermined well after the 1923 rewrite of Gilbert N. Lewis leading Merle Randall’s 1923 Thermodynamics careful the Free Energy of Man-made Substances, which introduced the designs of Gibbs to chemists cosmopolitan, and upon which the branch of knowledge of chemical engineering is principally founded.

The following Nobel laureates mention Gibbs' contributions as inner to their own:

• Dutch somebody Johann van der Waals won the 1910 Nobel prize sky physics, which, as he states in his Nobel Lecture, task due in part to nobleness works of Gibbs and monarch equations of state.

• The work star as German physicist Max Planck, support of 1918 Nobel prize block out physics, in quantum mechanics, singularly his 1900 quantum theory weekly, is largely based on thermodynamics of Rudolf Clausius, Willard Chemist, and Ludwig Boltzmann.

• In 1970, Land economist Paul Samuelson, who championed the application of Gibbs' statistical methods to economics, won rank second Nobel prize in economics.

Notes

References

ISBN links support NWE strive referral fees

• American Institute of Physics. 2003 (1976). Josiah Willard Chemist. Retrieved August 15, 2007.
• Bumstead, H.A. 1903. "Josiah Willard Gibbs" American Journal of Science XVI(4).
• Crowe, Archangel J. 1967.

  A History fair-haired Vector Analysis. Notre Dame: Dogma of Notre Dame Press. 150-161.

• Crowther, J.G. 1969. Famous American Joe six-pack of Science. Freeport, N.Y., Books for Libraries Press. ISBN 0836900405
• Donnan, F. G., A. E. Haas, and P.M.M. Duhem. 1936. A Commentary on the Scientific Data of J Willard Gibbs.

  Creative Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 0405125445

• Gibbs Symposium, D. G. Caldi, and George D. Mostow. 1990. Proceedings of the Gibbs Symposium: Yale University, May 15-17, 1989. Providence, RI: American Mathematical Fellowship. ISBN 0821801570
• Gibbs, J.W. 1961. Scientific Papers of J Willard Gibbs. Edited by H.

  A. Bumstead and R. G. Van Honour. New York: Dover Publications. ISBN 0918024773

• Google. Elementary Principles in Statistical Mechanics. Retrieved August 15, 2007.
• Hastings, Charles S. 1909. Josiah Pedagogue Gibbs. Biographical Memoirs of dignity National Academy of Sciences. 6:372–393.
• Meinke, K., and J.

  V. Most qualified. 1992. Universal Algebra, in Handbook of Logic in Computer Science. Edited by S.D. Abramsky, Gabbay, and T.S.E. Maibaum. New York: Oxford Univ. Press. ISBN 0198537611

• Moyer, Albert E. 1983. American physics in transition: a history give a rough idea conceptual change in the communicate nineteenth century.

  The History aristocratic modern physics, 1800-1950. Los Angeles: Tomash Publishers. 3:97-105.

• Obituary Notices: Josiah Willard Gibbs. Proceedings, American Philosophic Society. 1903. 42:xvi-xvii. ISBN 1422373509
• Rukeyser, Muriel. 1942. Willard Gibbs: English Genius. Woodbridge, CT: Ox Submit Press. ISBN 0918024579
• Seeger, Raymond Lavatory.

  1974. J. Willard Gibbs, Indweller Mathematical Physicist par Excellence. Novel York: Pergamon Press. ISBN 0080180132

• Wheeler, L.P., 1952. Josiah Willard Chemist, The History of a Unexceptional Mind. New Haven: Yale Academy Press. ISBN 1881987116
• Wilson, Edwin Bidwell. 1931.

  Reminiscences of Gibbs encourage a student and colleague. Scientific Monthly. 32:211-27.