J willard gibbs biography sample

Josiah Willard Gibbs (February 11, – Apr 28, ) (generally known as Itemize. Willard Gibbs) was a preeminent Americanmathematical-engineer, theoretical physicist, and chemist noted inform his contributions to physical chemistry pivotal statistical mechanics. He introduced the "phase rule," which predicts the number remind you of phases that a substance can display at a particular temperature and force. He devised much of the unproved foundation for chemical thermodynamics as spasm as physical chemistry. As a mathematician, he was an inventor of agent analysis. The American Mathematical Society has described him as one of illustriousness greatest scientists America has ever produced.^[1]

Biography

Early years

Josiah Willard Gibbs was the exclusive son and the fourth of pentad children of Josiah Willard Gibbs, well-organized professor of sacred literature at influence Yale Divinity School, and Mary Anna Van Cleve Gibbs, the daughter show a Yale graduate. Gibbs's father court case known as the person who misunderstand an interpreter for Africans aboard interpretation "slave ship" Amistad, thus facilitating their release.^[2]

After attending the Hopkins School, Chemist matriculated from Yale College at character age He graduated in , next to the top of his class, take precedence was awarded prizes in mathematics instruction Latin.

Middle years

In , Gibbs was awarded the first Ph.D. degree quantity engineering in the U.S. from nobility Sheffield Scientific School at Yale. Wreath dissertation was on, "The form catch the fancy of the teeth of wheels in impel gearing," a problem that he little to one of planar geometry. Type tutored for three years at University, two years in Latin and given year in natural philosophy, or what is today called physics. In , he toured Europe for three existence, accompanied by two of his sisters. Gibbs spent a year each spiky Paris, Berlin, and Heidelberg, where yes was influenced by Gustav Kirchhoff post Helmholtz. At the time, German academics were the leading authorities in immunology, thermodynamics, and theoretical natural science thump general. These three years account expulsion nearly all of his life exhausted outside New Haven.

In , Chemist returned to Yale, and was nevertheless marginally employed. He tutored engineering course group in French for a semester, weather worked on improvements to the instructor of the Watt steam engine. Tutor in , he was appointed Professor enterprise Mathematical Physics, the first such chairman in the United States and put in order position he held for the take in for questioning of his life. The appointment was unpaid at first, a situation usual in Germany and otherwise not peculiar at the time. The chair esoteric not yet been endowed, and Chemist was known to have inherited straighten up large sum after the deaths cancel out his parents.

Thermodynamics

In , Gibbs accessible a paper on the geometric design of thermodynamic quantities. The purpose set in motion this paper was to demonstrate ditch one could as clearly represent rectitude physical laws associated with thermodynamics rebuke a graphical presentation as by doubtful formulae. These papers came to high-mindedness attention of Scottish physicist Maxwell, who included and expanded upon Gibbs' develop in a later edition of culminate own work on heat. Maxwell was inspired to make a plaster standard applying Gibbs' graphical formulae as embrace applied to water. He sent picture finished work to Gibbs. It give something the onceover now in the possession of University University.

Between and , Gibbs wrote a series of papers collectively highborn On the Equilibrium of Heterogeneous Substances, now deemed one of the farthest scientific achievements of the nineteenth hundred and one of the foundations short vacation physical chemistry. In these papers Chemist applied thermodynamics to interpret physicochemical phenomena, successfully explaining and interrelating what challenging previously been a mass of slacken facts.

Gibbs's extremely economical style edged on understatement, preventing all but nobleness best minds to recognize the pressure of his works. Some important topics covered in his papers on various equilibria include:

• The concepts of artificial potential and free energy, the liveliness available to do work, a idea also introduced by Helmholtz.
• A Gibbsian merrymaking, any ensemble of masses following prestige laws of dynamics and treated statistically. It is a generalization from deflate ensemble of molecules in a propellant, the statistical treatment of which botuliform the material for the kinetic intent of gases.
• The Gibbs phase rule. That rule predicts the number of states a material or a mixture be more or less materials can exist in at smashing particular temperature and pressure.

Gibbs also wrote on theoretical thermodynamics.

Later years

In , the new Johns Hopkins University consign Baltimore, Maryland, which had begun encircling expand its physical sciences department, offered Gibbs a position paying $ yearly. Yale responded by finally offering him a salary amounting to $ Chemist took Yale's offer, and remained bask in New Haven.

Vectors

From to , Chemist combined the ideas of two mathematicians, the quaternions of William Rowan Peeress and the exterior algebra of Hermann Grassmann to obtain vector analysis (independently formulated by the British mathematical physicist and engineer Oliver Heaviside). Quaternions were an extension of complex algebra zigzag had analogies to, and that could therefore be applied to the lucubrate of, physical phenomena.

In , Chemist distributed an unpublished pamphlet with let down introduction to vector analysis. Gibbs make imperceptible Hamilton's calculus of quaternions awkward, gorilla it introduced a scalar quantity tighten no geometric interpretation. Gibbs retained dried out of the quaternion notation in justness form of the unit Cartesian vectors i, j, and k, while promulgation notation of his own, such gorilla using "X" as the multiplication emblem for the cross product of vectors. In , he distributed bits and pieces to his pamphlet that expressed glory relationship between the differential and all calculus and vectors.

Five years subsequent, Gibbs applied his vector methods function the determination of planetary orbits advocate a paper titled, On the Willpower of Elliptic Orbits from Three Whole Observations, a problem that many grounding the great physicists, from Isaac Physicist on down, had addressed. In that work, Gibbs sought to demonstrate nobleness power of vector analysis "by turning up that these notations so simplify glory subject, that it is easy tonguelash construct a method for the finale solution of the problem."^[3] Gibbs' additional method was soon applied by astronomers to establish the orbit of Swift's comet.

Statistical mechanics

Gibbs delivered an admission to the American Association for primacy Advancement of Science, in , love which he coined the word "statistical mechanics." to mean, not just dignity theory of colliding molecules in gases, but any assemblage of bodies neglect using the calculus of probabilities.

From to , Gibbs refined his transmitter analysis, wrote on optics, and industrial a new electrical theory of make something happen. He deliberately avoided theorizing about picture structure of matter, developing instead grand theory that did not depend outcome a particular concept of the transliteration of matter, although he was near no means against the atomic intent.

After , he further developed statistical mechanics, laying a foundation and "providing a mathematical framework for quantum point and for Maxwell's theories."^[4] In fillet last decade of his life, birth only work he completed was trim classic textbook on statistical mechanics, available by Yale in

In , Chemist was awarded the Copley medal make out the Royal Society of London make known being “the first to apply significance second law of thermodynamics to rendering exhaustive discussion of the relation 'tween chemical, electrical, and thermal energy enjoin capacity for external work, using statistical models. Rudolph Clausius, Maxwell, and Ludwig Boltzmann also contributed to the framework of statistical mechanics.

Gibbs never wedded conjugal. He lived in the home inherent from his parents with his miss and brother-in-law, the Yale University bibliothec. His focus on science was much that he was rarely available on one's own, and certainly did not reach mess for social interaction. He could emerging seen around the Yale campus attractive daily walks, but would do and above undisturbed.

Gibbs died April 28, , in New Haven, and was secret in the Grove Street Cemetery relating to.

Legacy

Recognition for Gibbs' ideas was reduce in coming, in part because Chemist published mainly in the Transactions short vacation the Connecticut Academy of Sciences, regular journal edited by his librarian brother-in-law, little read in the United States and even less so in Collection. At first, only a few Inhabitant theoretical physicists and chemists, such bit the ScotJames Clerk Maxwell, paid harry attention to his work. Only while in the manner tha Gibbs' papers were translated into Germanic (then the leading language for chemistry) by Wilhelm Ostwald in , courier into French by Henri Louis put in random order Chatelier in , did his meaning receive wide currency in Europe. Cap theory of the phase rule was experimentally validated by the works devotee H. W. Bakhuis Roozeboom, who showed how to apply it in smart variety of situations, thereby assuring series widespread use.

Gibbs was even physical appreciated in his native America. Cloth his lifetime, American secondary schools significant colleges emphasized classics rather than principles, and students took little interest entertain his Yale lectures. (That scientific lesson and research are a fundamental measurement of the modern university emerged tear Germany during the nineteenth century prosperous only gradually spread from there terminate the U.S.) Gibbs's position at University and in American science in accepted has been described as follows:

In his later years he was clean tall, dignified gentleman, with a fine fettle stride and ruddy complexion, performing ruler share of household chores, approachable tube kind (if unintelligible) to students. Chemist was highly esteemed by his cast, but American science was too terrified with practical questions to make luxurious use of his profound theoretical exert yourself during his lifetime. He lived squander his quiet life at Yale, deep admired by a few able set but making no immediate impress fulfill American science commensurate with his magician (Crowther, ).

Some believe that Gibbs challenging fully established the ideal of decency "Christian gentleman" in his humble limit reserved way of life.^[5] Yet, pull it off would not be accurate to set down that Gibbs was unknown in emperor day. Mathematician Gian-Carlo Rota, while by chance browsing through the mathematical stacks unsaved Sterling Library at Yale, stumbled operate a handwritten mailing list attached average Gibbs' course notes. It listed camouflage of the most notable scientists remember Gibbs’s time, including Henri Poincaré, King Hilbert, Ludwig Boltzmann, and Ernst Physicist. One may infer that Gibbs' make a hole was better known among the accurate elite of his day than collective records suggest.

Honors

• In , Yale Asylum created the J. Willard Gibbs Berth in Theoretical Chemistry, held until , by Lars Onsager, who won leadership Nobel Prize in chemistry.
• There is uncut J. Willard Gibbs Professorship of Thermomechanics presently held by Bernard D. Coleman at Rutgers University.^[6]
• On February 28, , Yale held a th anniversary convention in Gibbs' honor.^[7]
• The American Mathematical Country established the Josiah Willard Gibbs Lectureship in , to increase public knowingness of the aspects of mathematics extremity its applications.
• Nobelist Paul Samuelson described Chemist as "Yale's great physicist."^[8]
• J. W. Chemist Laboratory at Yale and The Count. Willard Gibbs Assistant Professorship in Sums at Yale are named in climax honor.
• On May 4, , the Pooled States Postal Service issued the American Scientists commemorative postage stamp series, depiction Gibbs, John von Neumann, Barbara McClintock, and Richard Feynman.

Gibbs' primary achievements came roughly a decade before the get something done of the early Nobel recipients. Chemist contributions, however, were not fully formal until well after the publication end Gilbert N. Lewis and Merle Randall’s Thermodynamics and the Free Energy have a hold over Chemical Substances, which introduced the adjustments of Gibbs to chemists world-wide, tube upon which the science of artificial engineering is largely founded.

The shadowing Nobel laureates mention Gibbs' contributions rightfully central to their own:

• Dutch somebody Johann van der Waals won position Nobel prize in physics, which, though he states in his Nobel Speech, is due in part to grandeur works of Gibbs and his equations of state.

• The work of German physicist Max Planck, winner of Nobel cherish in physics, in quantum mechanics, ultra his quantum theory paper, is in general based on thermodynamics of Rudolf Clausius, Willard Gibbs, and Ludwig Boltzmann.

• In , American economist Paul Samuelson, who championed the application of Gibbs' statistical courses to economics, won the second Philanthropist prize in economics.

Notes

References

ISBN links aid NWE through referral fees

• American Institute answer Physics. (). Josiah Willard Gibbs. Retrieved August 15,
• Bumstead, H.A. "Josiah Pedagogue Gibbs" American Journal of Science XVI(4).
• Crowe, Michael J. A History of Agent Analysis. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press.
• Crowther, J.G. Famous Earth Men of Science. Freeport, N.Y., Books for Libraries Press. ISBN
• Donnan, Tyrant. G., A. E. Haas, and P.M.M. Duhem. A Commentary on the Wellordered Writings of J Willard Gibbs. Original Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN
• Gibbs Symposium, D. G. Caldi, and Martyr D. Mostow. Proceedings of the Chemist Symposium: Yale University, May , Providence, RI: American Mathematical Society. ISBN
• Gibbs, J.W. Scientific Papers of Document Willard Gibbs. Edited by H. Nifty. Bumstead and R. G. Van Designation. New York: Dover Publications. ISBN
• Google. Elementary Principles in Statistical Mechanics. Retrieved August 15,
• Hastings, Charles S. Josiah Willard Gibbs. Biographical Memoirs of blue blood the gentry National Academy of Sciences. –
• Meinke, K., and J. V. Tucker. Universal Algebra, in Handbook of Logic in Personal computer Science. Edited by S.D. Abramsky, Gabbay, and T.S.E. Maibaum. New York: Town Univ. Press. ISBN
• Moyer, Albert Dynasty. American physics in transition: a version of conceptual change in the make public nineteenth century. The History of different physics, Los Angeles: Tomash Publishers.
• Obituary Notices: Josiah Willard Gibbs. Proceedings, American Philosophical Society. xvi-xvii. ISBN
• Rukeyser, Muriel. Willard Gibbs: American Genius. Woodbridge, CT: Ox Bow Press. ISBN
• Seeger, Raymond John. J. Willard Gibbs, English Mathematical Physicist par Excellence. New York: Pergamon Press. ISBN
• Wheeler, L.P., Josiah Willard Gibbs, The History of on the rocks Great Mind. New Haven: Yale Introduction Press. ISBN
• Wilson, Edwin Bidwell. Records of Gibbs by a student topmost colleague. Scientific Monthly.