What did josiah willard gibbs discover credit

That work was based largely on the thermodynamics of Kirchhoff, Boltzmann, and Gibbs. Planck declared that Gibbs's name "not only in America but in the whole world will ever be reckoned among the most renowned theoretical physicists of all times. The first half of the 20th century saw the publication of two influential textbooks that soon came to be regarded as founding documents of chemical thermodynamicsboth of which used and extended Gibbs's work in that field: these were Thermodynamics and the Free Energy of Chemical Processesby Gilbert N.

Gibbs's work on statistical ensembles, as presented in his textbook, has had a great impact in both theoretical physics and in pure mathematics. It is one of the striking features of the work of Gibbs, noticed by every student of thermodynamics and statistical mechanics, that his formulations of physical concepts were so felicitously chosen that they have survived years of turbulent development in theoretical physics and mathematics.

Initially unaware of Gibbs's contributions in that field, Albert Einstein wrote three papers on statistical mechanics, published between and After reading Gibbs's textbook which was translated into German by Ernst Zermelo inEinstein declared that Gibbs's treatment was superior to his own and explained that he would not have written those papers if he had known Gibbs's work.

Gibbs's early papers on the use of graphical methods in thermodynamics reflect a powerfully original understanding of what mathematicians would later call " convex analysis ", [ ] including ideas that, according to Barry Simon"lay dormant for about seventy-five years". The development of vector calculus was Gibbs's other great contribution to mathematics.

What did josiah willard gibbs discover credit: The Gibbs award, in

The publication in of E. Wilson's textbook Vector Analysisbased on Gibbs's lectures at Yale, did much to propagate the use of vectorial methods and notation in both mathematics and theoretical physics, definitively displacing the quaternions that had until then been dominant in the scientific literature. At Yale, Gibbs was also mentor to Lee De Forest, who went on to invent the triode amplifier and has been called the "father of radio".

Gibbs also had an indirect influence on mathematical economics. He supervised the thesis of Irving Fisherwho received the first PhD in economics from Yale in In that work, published in as Mathematical Investigations in the Theory of Value and PricesFisher drew a direct analogy between Gibbsian equilibrium in physical and chemical systems, and the general equilibrium of markets, and he used Gibbs's vectorial notation.

Mathematician Norbert Wiener cited Gibbs's use of probability in the formulation of statistical mechanics as "the first great revolution of twentieth century physics" and as a major influence on his conception of cybernetics. Wiener explained in the preface to his book The Human Use of Human Beings that it was "devoted to the impact of the Gibbsian point of view on modern life, both through the substantive changes it has made to working science, and through the changes it has made indirectly in our attitude to life in general.

When the German physical chemist Walther Nernst visited Yale in to give the Silliman lecturehe was surprised to find no tangible memorial for Gibbs. This was finally unveiled inin the form of a bronze bas-relief by sculptor Lee Lawrieinstalled in the Sloane Physics Laboratory. InYale University created the J. Onsager, who much like Gibbs, focused on applying new mathematical ideas to problems in physical chemistry, won the Nobel Prize in chemistry.

Willard Gibbs Assistant Professorship in Mathematics, Yale has also hosted two symposia dedicated to Gibbs's life and work, one in and another on the centenary of his death, in Gibbs was elected in to the Hall of Fame for Great Americans. Edward Guggenheim introduced the symbol G for the Gibbs free energy inand this was used also by Dirk ter Haar in Ina year before his death, Albert Einstein was asked by an interviewer who were the greatest thinkers that he had known.

Inthe American historian and novelist Henry Adams finished an essay entitled "The Rule of Phase Applied to History", in which he sought to apply Gibbs's phase rule and other thermodynamic concepts to a general theory of human history. William JamesHenry Bumstead, and others criticized both Adams's tenuous grasp of the scientific concepts that he invoked, as well as the arbitrariness of his application of those concepts as metaphors for the evolution of human thought and society.

In the s, feminist poet Muriel Rukeyser became fascinated by Willard Gibbs and wrote a long poem about his life and work "Gibbs", included in the collection A Turning Windwhat did josiah willard gibbs discover credit inas well as a book-length biography Willard Gibbs Willard Gibbs is the type of the imagination at work in the world. His story is that of an opening up which has had its effect on our lives and our thinking; and, it seems to me, it is the emblem of the naked imagination—which is called abstract and impractical, but whose discoveries can be used by anyone who is interested, in whatever "field"—an imagination which for me, more than that of any other figure in American thought, any poet, or political, or religious figure, stands for imagination at its essential points.

InFortune magazine illustrated a cover story on "Fundamental Science" with a representation of the thermodynamic surface that Maxwell had built based on Gibbs's proposal. Rukeyser called this surface a "statue of water" [ ] and the magazine saw in it "the abstract creation of a great American scientist that lends itself to the symbolism of contemporary art forms.

Gibbs's nephew, Ralph Gibbs Van Name, a professor of physical chemistry at Yale, was unhappy with Rukeyser's biography, in part because of her lack of scientific training. Van Name had withheld the family papers from her and, after her book was published in to positive literary but mixed scientific reviews, he tried to encourage Gibbs's former students to produce a more technically oriented biography.

Both Gibbs and Rukeyser's biography of him figure prominently in the poetry collection True North by Stephanie Strickland. That novel also prominently discusses the birefringence of Iceland sparan optical phenomenon that Gibbs investigated. The first day of issue ceremony for the series was held on May 4 at Yale University's Luce Hall and was attended by John Marburgerscientific advisor to the president of the United States, Rick Levinpresident of Yale, and family members of the scientists honored, including physician John W.

Gibbs, a distant cousin of Willard Gibbs. Kenneth R. Jolls, a professor of chemical engineering at Iowa State University and an expert on graphical methods in thermodynamics, consulted on the design of the stamp honoring Gibbs. Contents move to sidebar hide. Article Talk. Read Edit View history. Tools Tools.

What did josiah willard gibbs discover credit: He revolutionized mathematics by developing a

Download as PDF Printable version. In other projects. Wikimedia Commons Wikiquote Wikisource Wikidata item. American scientist — New Haven, ConnecticutU. Chemistry Mathematics Physics. Biography [ edit ]. Family background [ edit ]. Education [ edit ]. Career, — [ edit ]. O'Connor and E. Robertson, [ 9 ]. Personal life and character [ edit ].

Wilson, [ 52 ]. Bumstead[ 6 ]. Major scientific contributions [ edit ]. Chemical and electrochemical thermodynamics [ edit ]. Statistical mechanics [ edit ]. Vector analysis [ edit ]. Physical optics [ edit ]. Gibbs, [ 6 ]. Scientific recognition [ edit ]. Crowther, [ 9 ]. Influence [ edit ]. Wightman, [ 77 ]. Commemoration [ edit ]. In literature [ edit ].

Gibbs stamp [ edit ]. Outline of principal work [ edit ]. See also [ edit ]. References [ edit ]. London: Royal Society. Archived from the original on March 16, Oxford Dictionary of English 3 ed. Oxford Reference. Willard Gibbs". Physics History. American Physical Society. Archived from the original on July 5, Retrieved June 16, Premier Awards.

Royal Society. Biographical Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences. Archived PDF from the original on October 9, He employed geometrical methods of analysis. After receiving a doctorate in engineering he was appointed a tutor at Yale in the same year. He devoted some attention to engineering inventions. Willard was from an intellectual family Willard came from a prosperous and intellectual family.

It had produced distinguished American clergymen and academics since the 17th century. His mother had come from an eminent family and was an amateur ornithologist. His father was an expert on languages and linguistics. Willard Gibbs was privately educated at Hopkins Grammar School. At age 15 enrolled at Yale University. He was awarded his degree in He was awarded prizes in Mathematics and Latin.

He immediately began working for an Engineering Ph. At the time he was 24 years. This was the first ever award of an Engineering Ph. He was quiet but impactful Josiah Willard Gibbs as a student. Image by Unknown author — Wikimedia. Socially, Gibbs was quiet and bookish, a somewhat reserved student. Academically, he was brilliant. His work was mostly theoretical.

The practical side became evident with the development of industrial chemistry during the first half of the 20th century. Willard as a scientist is not widely known. This could be because he was a quiet, bookish figure, with no interest in self-promotion. He rarely socialized and never. Willard was a simple man When his mother died, she left Willard and his sisters a sizable inheritance.

Willard rarely left America except for his annual summer holidays in northern New England. Other times when he had to leave New Haven were to lecture or attend a meeting. He lived and lived in the house in which he had grown up. The house was less than a block away from the college building. He had not yet published any papers on this subject.

For nine years he held the position without pay, living on the comfortable inheritance his father had left; only when Johns Hopkins University offered Gibbs a post did Yale give him a small salary. Gibbs never married. He lived out a calm and uneventful life in the house where he grew up, which he shared with his sisters. He was a gentle and considerate man, well-liked by those who knew him, but he tended to avoid society and was little known even in New Haven.

As one of Gibbs' European colleagues wrote, "Having once condensed a truth into a concise and very general formula, he would not think of churning out the endless succession of specific cases that were implied by the general proposition; his intelligence, like his character, was of a retiring disposition.

What did josiah willard gibbs discover credit: Gibbs' exceptional geometrical abilities were

Gibbs' chief scientific papers appeared in the Transactions of the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences. The articles were expensive to set in type because of their length and their wealth of mathematical formulas, so funds were raised by subscription from Yale professors and New Haven businessmen, few or none of whom could understand the publication they were subsidizing.

Gibbs found Hamilton's calculus of quaternions awkward, as it introduced a scalar quantity with no geometric interpretation. Gibbs retained some of the quaternion notation in the form of the unit Cartesian vectors i, j, and k, while introducing notation of his own, such as using "X" as the multiplication symbol for the cross product of two vectors.

Inhe distributed additions to his pamphlet that expressed the relationship between the differential and integral calculus and vectors. Five years later, Gibbs applied his vector methods to the determination of planetary orbits in a paper titled, On the Determination of Elliptic Orbits from Three Complete Observations, a problem that many of the great physicists, from Isaac Newton on down, had addressed.

In this work, Gibbs sought to demonstrate the power of vector analysis "by showing that these notations so simplify the subject, that it is easy to construct a method for the complete solution of the problem. Gibbs delivered an address to the American Association for the Advancement of Science, inin which he coined the word "statistical mechanics.

From toGibbs refined his vector analysis, wrote on optics, and developed a new electrical theory of light. He deliberately avoided theorizing about the structure of matter, developing instead a theory that did not depend on a particular concept of the construction of matter, although he was by no means against the atomic theory. Afterhe further developed statistical mechanics, laying a foundation and "providing a mathematical framework for quantum theory and for Maxwell's theories.

Rudolph Clausius, Maxwell, and Ludwig Boltzmann also contributed to the foundations of statistical mechanics. Gibbs never married. He lived in the home inherited from his parents with his sister and brother-in-law, the Yale University librarian. His focus on science was such that he was rarely available personally, and certainly did not reach out for social interaction.

He could be seen around the Yale campus taking daily walks, but would do so undisturbed. Recognition for Gibbs' ideas was slow in coming, in part because Gibbs published mainly in the Transactions of the Connecticut Academy of Sciences, a journal edited by his librarian brother-in-law, little read in the United States and even less so in Europe.

At first, only a few European theoretical physicists and chemistssuch as the Scot James Clerk Maxwellpaid any attention to his work. Only when Gibbs' papers were translated into German then the leading language for chemistry by Wilhelm Ostwald inand into French by Henri Louis le Chatelier indid his ideas receive wide currency in Europe. His theory of the phase rule was experimentally validated by the works of H.

Bakhuis Roozeboom, who showed how to apply it in a variety of situations, thereby assuring it widespread use. Gibbs was even less appreciated in his native America. During his lifetime, American secondary schools and colleges emphasized classics rather than science, and students took little interest in his Yale lectures.