Josiah Willard Gibbs

For Josiah Willard Gibbs, Sr., see Josiah Willard Gibbs, 1.1 Family background
Sr.. For the United States Navy ship, see USNS Josiah
Willard Gibbs (T-AGOR-1).
Gibbs belonged to an old Yankee family that had produced distinguished American clergymen and academics
Josiah Willard Gibbs (February 11, 1839 April 28, since the 17th century. He was the fourth of ve chil1903) was an American scientist who made important dren and the only son of Josiah Willard Gibbs and his
theoretical contributions to physics, chemistry, and math- wife Mary Anna, ne Van Cleve. On his fathers side,
ematics. His work on the applications of thermodynamics he was descended from Samuel Willard, who served as
was instrumental in transforming physical chemistry into acting President of Harvard College from 1701 to 1707.
a rigorous deductive science. Together with James Clerk On his mothers side, one of his ancestors was the Rev.
Maxwell and Ludwig Boltzmann, he created statistical Jonathan Dickinson, the rst president of the College of
mechanics (a term that he coined), explaining the laws of New Jersey (later Princeton University). Gibbss given
thermodynamics as consequences of the statistical prop- name, which he shared with his father and several other
erties of large ensembles of particles. Gibbs also worked members of his extended family, derived from his anon the application of Maxwells equations to problems in cestor Josiah Willard, who had been Secretary of the
physical optics. As a mathematician, he invented mod- Province of Massachusetts Bay in the 18th century.[5]
ern vector calculus (independently of the British scientist
Oliver Heaviside, who carried out similar work during the
same period).
In 1863, Yale awarded Gibbs the rst American doctorate
in engineering. After a three-year sojourn in Europe,
Gibbs spent the rest of his career at Yale, where he was
professor of mathematical physics from 1871 until his
death. Working in relative isolation, he became the earliest theoretical scientist in the United States to earn an
international reputation and was praised by Albert Einstein as the greatest mind in American history.[2] In
1901 Gibbs received what was then considered the highest honor awarded by the international scientic community, the Copley Medal of the Royal Society of London,[2]
for his contributions to mathematical physics.[3]
Commentators and biographers have remarked on the
contrast between Gibbss quiet, solitary life in turn of the
century New England and the great international impact
of his ideas. Though his work was almost entirely theoretical, the practical value of Gibbss contributions became evident with the development of industrial chemistry during the rst half of the 20th century. According
to Robert A. Millikan, in pure science Gibbs did for statistical mechanics and for thermodynamics what Laplace
did for celestial mechanics and Maxwell did for electrodynamics, namely, made his eld a well-nigh nished theoretical structure.[4]

Willard Gibbs as a young man

The elder Gibbs was generally known to his family

and colleagues as Josiah, while the son was called
Willard.[6] Josiah Gibbs was a linguist and theologian
who served as professor of sacred literature at Yale Divinity School from 1824 until his death in 1861. He is chiey
remembered today as the abolitionist who found an interpreter for the African passengers of the ship Amistad, allowing them to testify during the trial that followed their
rebellion against being sold as slaves.[7]

Biography

1.2

1 BIOGRAPHY

Early years

Willard Gibbs as a student, circa 1855

Willard Gibbs was educated at the Hopkins School and

entered Yale College in 1854, aged 15. He graduated in
1858 near the top of his class, and was awarded prizes
for excellence in mathematics and Latin.[8] He remained
at Yale as a graduate student at the Sheeld Scientic
School. At age 19, soon after his graduation from college, Gibbs was inducted into the Connecticut Academy
of Arts and Sciences, a scholarly institution composed
primarily of members of the Yale faculty.[9]
Relatively few documents from the period survive and it is
dicult to reconstruct the details of Gibbss early career
with precision.[10] In the opinion of biographers, Gibbss
principal mentor and champion, both at Yale and in the
Connecticut Academy, was probably the astronomer and
mathematician Hubert Anson Newton, a leading authority on meteors, who remained Gibbss lifelong friend and
condant.[9][10] After the death of his father in 1861,
Gibbs inherited enough money to make him nancially
independent.[11]
Recurrent pulmonary trouble ailed the young Gibbs and
his physicians were concerned that he might be susceptible to tuberculosis, which had killed his mother.[10] He
also suered from astigmatism, whose treatment was then
still largely unfamiliar to oculists, so that Gibbs had to diagnose himself and grind his own lenses.[12][13] Though in
later years he used glasses only for reading or other close
work,[12] Gibbss delicate health and imperfect eyesight
probably explain why he did not volunteer to ght in the
Civil War of 186165.[14] He was not conscripted and he
remained at Yale for the duration of the war.[15]

Gibbs during his time as a tutor at Yale[16]

ing, in which he used geometrical techniques to investigate the optimum design for gears.[17] In 1861, Yale had
become the rst US university to oer a Ph.D. degree[18]
and Gibbss was only the fth Ph.D. granted in the US in
any subject.[17] After graduation, Gibbs was appointed as
tutor at the College for a term of three years. During the
rst two years he taught Latin and during the third natural philosophy (i.e., physics).[5] In 1866 he patented a
design for a railway brake[19] and read a paper before the
Connecticut Academy, entitled The Proper Magnitude
of the Units of Length, in which he proposed a scheme
for rationalizing the system of units of measurement used
in mechanics.[20]
After his term as tutor ended, Gibbs traveled to Europe
with his sisters. They spent the winter of 186667 in
Paris, where Gibbs attended lectures at the Sorbonne
and the Collge de France, given by such distinguished
mathematical scientists as Joseph Liouville and Michel
Chasles.[21] Having undertaken a punishing regime of
study, Gibbs caught a serious cold and a doctor, fearing
tuberculosis, advised him to rest on the Riviera, where he
and his sisters spent several months and where he made a
full recovery.[22]

Moving to Berlin, Gibbs attended the lectures taught

by mathematicians Karl Weierstrass and Leopold Kronecker, as well as by chemist Heinrich Gustav Magnus.[23]
In August 1867, Gibbss sister Julia was married in Berlin
to Addison Van Name, who had been Gibbss classmate
at Yale. The newly married couple returned to New
In 1863, Gibbs received the rst Doctorate of Philosophy Haven, leaving Gibbs and his sister Anna in Germany.[24]
(Ph.D.) in engineering granted in the US, for a thesis en- In Heidelberg, Gibbs was exposed to the work of physititled On the Form of the Teeth of Wheels in Spur Gear- cists Gustav Kirchho and Hermann von Helmholtz, and

1.3

Middle years

chemist Robert Bunsen. At the time, German academics He then produced three plaster casts of his model and
were the leading authorities in the natural sciences, espe- mailed one to Gibbs. That cast is on display at the Yale
cially chemistry and thermodynamics.[25]
physics department.[31]
Gibbs returned to Yale in June 1869 and briey taught
French to engineering students.[26] It was probably also
around this time that he worked on a new design for
a steam-engine governor, his last signicant investigation in mechanical engineering.[27][28] In 1871 he was appointed Professor of Mathematical Physics at Yale, the
rst such professorship in the United States. Gibbs, who
had independent means and had yet to publish anything,
was assigned to teach graduate students exclusively and
was hired without salary.[29] Unsalaried teaching positions were common in German universities, on which the
system of graduate scientic instruction at Yale was then
being modeled.[30]

1.3

Middle years

Maxwell included a chapter on Gibbss work in the next

edition of his Theory of Heat, published in 1875. He explained the usefulness of Gibbss graphical methods in a
lecture to the Chemical Society of London and even referred to it in the article on Diagrams that he wrote for
the Encyclopdia Britannica.[32] Prospects of collaboration between him and Gibbs were cut short by Maxwells
early death in 1879, aged 48. The joke later circulated in
New Haven that only one man lived who could understand Gibbss papers. That was Maxwell, and now he is
dead.[33]
Gibbs then extended his thermodynamic analysis to
multi-phase chemical systems (i.e., to systems composed
of more than one kind of matter) and considered a variety
of concrete applications. He described that research in a
monograph titled "On the Equilibrium of Heterogeneous
Substances", published by the Connecticut Academy in
two parts that appeared respectively in 1875 and 1878.
That work, which covers about three hundred pages and
contains exactly seven hundred numbered mathematical
equations,[34] begins with a quotation from Rudolf Clausius that expresses what would later be called the rst
and second laws of thermodynamics: The energy of the
world is constant. The entropy of the world tends towards
a maximum.[35]
Gibbss monograph rigorously and ingeniously applied
his thermodynamic techniques to the interpretation of
physico-chemical phenomena, explaining and relating
what had previously been a mass of isolated facts and
observations.[36] The work has been described as the
Principia of thermodynamics and as a work of practically unlimited scope.[34] Wilhelm Ostwald, who translated Gibbss monograph into German, referred to Gibbs
as the founder of chemical energetics.[37] According to
modern commentators,

Maxwells sketch of the lines of constant temperature and pressure, made in preparation for his construction of a solid model
based on Gibbss denition of a thermodynamic surface for water (see Maxwells thermodynamic surface)

Gibbs published his rst work in 1873, at the unusually advanced age of 34.[8] His papers on the geometric representation of thermodynamic quantities appeared
in the Transactions of the Connecticut Academy. This
journal had few readers capable of understanding Gibbss
work, but he shared reprints with correspondents in Europe and received an enthusiastic response from James
Clerk Maxwell at Cambridge. Maxwell even made, with
his own hands, a clay model illustrating Gibbss construct.

It is universally recognised that its publication was an event of the rst importance
in the history of chemistry ... Nevertheless it
was a number of years before its value was
generally known, this delay was due largely
to the fact that its mathematical form and
rigorous deductive processes make it dicult
reading for anyone, and especially so for
students of experimental chemistry whom it
most concerns.
J. J. O'Connor and E. F. Robertson, 1997[8]

Gibbs continued to work without pay until 1880, when

the new Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland oered him a position paying $3,000 per year. In
response, Yale oered him an annual salary of $2,000,
which he was content to accept.[38]

1.4

1 BIOGRAPHY

Later years

The sine integral function, which gives the overshoot associated

with the Gibbs phenomenon for the Fourier series of a step function on the real line

Yales Sloane Physical Laboratory, as it stood between 1882

and 1931 at the current location of Jonathan Edwards College.
Gibbss oce was on the second oor, to the right of the tower
in the picture.[39]

From 1880 to 1884, Gibbs worked on developing the

exterior algebra of Hermann Grassmann into a vector calculus well-suited to the needs of physicists. With this object in mind, Gibbs distinguished between the dot and
cross products of two vectors and introduced the concept
of dyadics. Similar work was carried out independently,
and at around the same time, by the British mathematical
physicist and engineer Oliver Heaviside. Gibbs sought to
convince other physicists of the convenience of the vectorial approach over the quaternionic calculus of William
Rowan Hamilton, which was then widely used by British
scientists. This led him, in the early 1890s, to a controversy with Peter Guthrie Tait and others in the pages of
Nature.[5]
Gibbss lecture notes on vector calculus were privately
printed in 1881 and 1884 for the use of his students, and
were later adapted by Edwin Bidwell Wilson into a textbook, Vector Analysis, published in 1901.[5] That book
helped to popularize the "del" notation that is widely used
today in electrodynamics and uid mechanics. In other
mathematical work, he re-discovered the "Gibbs phenomenon" in the theory of Fourier series (which, unbeknownst to him and to later scholars, had been described
fty years before by an obscure English mathematician,
Henry Wilbraham).[40]
From 1882 to 1889, Gibbs wrote ve papers on physical
optics, in which he investigated birefringence and other
optical phenomena and defended Maxwells electromagnetic theory of light against the mechanical theories of

Lord Kelvin and others.[5] In his work on optics just as

much as in his work on thermodynamics, Gibbs deliberately avoided speculating about the microscopic structure
of matter,[41] which proved a wise course in view of the
revolutionary developments in quantum mechanics that
began around the time of his death.[42]
Gibbs coined the term statistical mechanics and introduced key concepts in the corresponding mathematical
description of physical systems, including the notions of
chemical potential (1876), statistical ensemble (1878),
and phase space (1902).[43][44] Gibbss derivation of the
phenomenological laws of thermodynamics from the statistical properties of systems with many particles was presented in his highly inuential textbook Elementary Principles in Statistical Mechanics, published in 1902, a year
before his death.[43]
Gibbss retiring personality and intense focus on his work
limited his accessibility to students. His principal protg
was Edwin Bidwell Wilson, who nonetheless explained
that except in the classroom I saw very little of Gibbs.
He had a way, toward the end of the afternoon, of taking a stroll about the streets between his study in the
old Sloane Laboratory and his homea little exercise
between work and dinnerand one might occasionally
come across him at that time.[45] Gibbs did supervise
the doctoral thesis on mathematical economics written
by Irving Fisher in 1891.[46] After Gibbss death, Fisher
nanced the publication of his Collected Works.[47] Another distinguished student was Lee De Forest, later a pioneer of radio technology.[48]
Gibbs died in New Haven on April 28, 1903, at the age of
64, victim of an acute intestinal obstruction.[45] A funeral
was conducted two days later at his home on 121 High
Street,[49] and his body was buried in the nearby Grove
Street Cemetery.[50] In May, Yale organized a memorial
meeting at the Sloane Laboratory. The eminent British
physicist J. J. Thomson was in attendance and delivered a
brief address.[51]

1.5

Personal life and character

renown nor a propagandist for science; he was

a scholar, scion of an old scholarly family,
living before the days when research had
become rsearch ... Gibbs was not a freak, he
had no striking ways, he was a kindly dignied
gentleman.
E. B. Wilson, 1931[45]

According to Lynde Wheeler, who had been Gibbss student at Yale, in his later years Gibbs
was always neatly dressed, usually wore a
felt hat on the street, and never exhibited any
of the physical mannerisms or eccentricities
sometimes thought to be inseparable from
genius ... His manner was cordial without
being eusive and conveyed clearly the innate
simplicity and sincerity of his nature.
Lynde Wheeler, 1951[52]

Photograph taken around 1895. According to his student Lynde

Wheeler, of the existing portraits this is the most faithful to Gibbss
kindly habitual expression.[52]

Gibbs never married, living all his life in his childhood

home with his sister Julia and her husband Addison Van
Name, who was the Yale librarian. Except for his customary summer vacations in the Adirondacks (at Keene
Valley, New York) and later at the White Mountains
(in Intervale, New Hampshire),[53] his sojourn in Europe in 186669 was almost the only time that Gibbs
spent outside New Haven.[5] He joined Yales College
Church (a Congregational church) at the end of his freshman year[53][54] and remained a regular attendant for
the rest of his life.[55] Gibbs generally voted for the
Republican candidate in presidential elections but, like
other "Mugwumps", his concern over the growing corruption associated with machine politics led him to support Grover Cleveland, a conservative Democrat, in the
election of 1884.[56] Little else is known of his religious
or political views, which he mostly kept to himself.[55]

He was a careful investor and nancial manager, and at his

death in 1903 his estate was valued at $100,000.[53] For
many years he served as trustee, secretary, and treasurer
of his alma mater, the Hopkins School.[59] US President
Chester A. Arthur appointed him as one of the commissioners to the National Conference of Electricians, which
convened in Philadelphia in September 1884, and Gibbs
presided over one of its sessions.[53] A keen and skilled
horseman,[60] Gibbs was seen habitually in New Haven
driving his sisters carriage.[61] In an obituary published in
the American Journal of Science, Gibbss former student
Henry A. Bumstead referred to Gibbss personal character:
Unassuming in manner, genial and kindly
in his intercourse with his fellow-men, never
showing impatience or irritation, devoid of
personal ambition of the baser sort or of the
slightest desire to exalt himself, he went far
toward realizing the ideal of the unselsh,
Christian gentleman. In the minds of those
who knew him, the greatness of his intellectual
achievements will never overshadow the
beauty and dignity of his life.
H. A. Bumstead, 1903[5]

Gibbs did not produce a substantial personal correspondence and many of his letters were later lost or
destroyed.[57] Beyond the technical writings concerning
his research, he published only two other pieces: a 2 Major scientic contributions
brief obituary for Rudolf Clausius, one of the founders
of the mathematical theory of thermodynamics, and a
longer biographical memoir of his mentor at Yale, H. A. 2.1 Chemical thermodynamics
Newton.[58] In Edward Bidwell Wilsons view,
Gibbss papers from the 1870s introduced the idea of exGibbs was not an advertiser for personal
pressing the internal energy U of a system in terms of the

2 MAJOR SCIENTIFIC CONTRIBUTIONS

in uid mixtures.[36] He also formulated the phase rule

F = C P + 2

2.2 Statistical mechanics

A
C

B
Q

for the number F of variables that may be independently

controlled in an equilibrium mixture of C components
existing in P phases. Awareness of this rule led to the
widespread use of phase diagrams by chemists.[62]

Graphical representation of the free energy of a body, from the

latter of the papers published by Gibbs in 1873. This shows a
plane of constant volume, passing through the point A that represents the bodys initial state. The curve MN is the section of the
surface of dissipated energy. AD and AE are, respectively, the
energy () and entropy () of the initial state. AB is the available energy (now called the Helmholtz free energy) and AC the
capacity for entropy (i.e., the amount by which the entropy can
be increased without changing the energy or volume).

Together with James Clerk Maxwell and Ludwig Boltzmann, Gibbs founded statistical mechanics, a term that
he coined to identify the branch of theoretical physics that
accounts for the observed thermodynamic properties of
systems in terms of the statistics of large ensembles of
particles. He introduced the concept of phase space and
used it to dene the microcanonical, canonical, and grand
canonical ensembles, thus obtaining a more general formulation of the statistical properties of many-particle systems than Maxwell and Boltzmann had achieved before
him.[43][44]

According to Henri Poincar, writing in 1904, even

though Maxwell and Boltzmann had previously explained
the irreversibility of macroscopic physical processes in
probabilistic terms, the one who has seen it most clearly,
in a book too little read because it is a little dicult to
read, is Gibbs, in his Elementary Principles of Statistical
Mechanics.[63] Gibbss analysis of irreversibility, and his
formulation of Boltzmanns H-theorem and of the ergodic
hypothesis, were major inuences on the mathematical
physics
of the 20th century.[42][64]
entropy S, in addition to the usual state-variables of volume V, pressure p, and temperature T.[43] He also intro- Gibbs was well aware that the application of the
duced the concept of the chemical potential of a given equipartition theorem to large systems of classical parchemical species, dened to be the rate of the increase ticles failed to explain the measurements of the specic
in U associated with the increase in the number N of heats of both solids and gases, and he argued that this
molecules of that species (at constant entropy and vol- was evidence of the danger of basing thermodynamics on
ume). Thus, it was Gibbs who rst combined the rst hypotheses about the constitution of matter.[44] Gibbss
and second laws of thermodynamics[43] by expressing the own framework for statistical mechanics was so carefully
innitesimal change in the energy of a system in the form: constructed that it could be carried over almost intact

after the discovery that the microscopic laws of nature

dU = T dS p dV + i i dNi
obey quantum rules, rather than the classical laws known
where the sum in the last term is over the dierent chem- to Gibbs and to his contemporaries.[8] His resolution of
ical species. By taking the Legendre transform of this the so-called "Gibbs paradox", about the entropy of the
expression, he dened the concepts of enthalpy and free mixing of gases, is now often cited as a preguration of
energy, including what is now known as the "Gibbs free the indistinguishability of particles required by quantum
energy" (a thermodynamic potential which is especially physics.[65]
useful to chemists since it determines whether a reaction will proceed spontaneously at a xed temperature In 1948, Norbert Wiener suggested in his denitive book
and pressure). In a similar way, he also obtained what Cybernetics that the Gibbs work on statistical mechanlater came to be known as the "GibbsDuhem equa- ics could be illuminated by the group theoretical work of
Henri Lebesgue.
tion".[36][43]
The publication of the paper On the Equilibrium of
Heterogeneous Substances (187478) is now regarded
as a landmark in the development of physical chemistry.[8] In it, Gibbs developed a rigorous mathematical theory for various transport phenomena, including
adsorption, electrochemistry, and the Marangoni eect

2.3 Vector analysis

British scientists, including Maxwell, had relied on
Hamiltons quaternions in order to express the dynamics of physical quantities, like the electric and magnetic

A calcite crystal produces birefringence (or double refraction)

of light, a phenomenon which Gibbs explained using Maxwells
equations for electromagnetic phenomena.

Diagram showing the magnitude and direction of the cross product of two vectors, in the notation introduced by Gibbs

cant contribution to classical electromagnetism by applying Maxwells equations to the theory of optical processes such as birefringence, dispersion, and optical activity.[5][41] In that work, Gibbs showed that those processes
could be accounted for by Maxwells equations without
any special assumptions about the microscopic structure
of matter or about the nature of the medium in which
electromagnetic waves were supposed to propagate (the
so-called luminiferous ether). Gibbs also stressed that the
absence of a longitudinal electromagnetic wave, which is
needed to account for the observed properties of light,
is automatically guaranteed by Maxwells equations (by
virtue of what is now called their "gauge invariance"),
whereas in mechanical theories of light, such as Lord
Kelvins, it must be imposed as an ad hoc condition on
the properties of the aether.[41]

elds, having both a magnitude and a direction in threedimensional space. Gibbs, however, noted that the product of quaternions always had to be separated into two
parts: a one-dimensional (scalar) quantity and a threedimensional vector, so that the use of quaternions introduced mathematical complications and redundancies that
could be avoided in the interest of simplicity and to facilitate teaching. He therefore proposed dening distinct dot
and cross products for pairs of vectors and introduced the
now common notation for them. He was also largely responsible for the development of the vector calculus techniques still used today in electrodynamics and uid me- In his last paper on physical optics, Gibbs concluded that
chanics.
While he was working on vector analysis in the late
1870s, Gibbs discovered that his approach was similar
to the one that Grassmann had taken in his multiple
algebra.[66] Gibbs then sought to publicize Grassmanns
work, stressing that it was both more general and historically prior to Hamiltons quaternionic algebra. To establish Grassmanns priority, Gibbs convinced Grassmanns
heirs to seek the publication in Germany of the essay on
tides that Grassmann had submitted in 1840 to the faculty at the University of Berlin, in which he had rst introduced the notion of what would later be called a vector
space.[67]

it may be said for the electrical theory [of

light] that it is not obliged to invent hypotheses,
but only to apply the laws furnished by the
science of electricity, and that it is dicult
to account for the coincidences between the
electrical and optical properties of media
unless we regard the motions of light as
electrical.
J. W. Gibbs, 1889[5]

Shortly afterwards, the electromagnetic nature of light

As Gibbs had advocated in the 1880s and 1890s, quaterwas demonstrated by the experiments of Heinrich Hertz
nions were eventually all but abandoned by physicists in
in Germany.[69]
favor of the vectorial approach developed by him and, independently, by Oliver Heaviside. Gibbs applied his vector methods to the determination of planetary and comet
orbits. He also developed the concept of mutually recip- 3 Scientic recognition
rocal triads of vectors that later proved to be of importance in crystallography.[68]
Gibbs worked at a time when there was little tradition of
rigorous theoretical science in the United States. His research was not easily understandable to his students or
2.4 Physical optics
his colleagues and he made no eort to popularize his
ideas or to simplify their exposition to make them more
Though Gibbss research on physical optics is less well accessible.[8] His seminal work on thermodynamics was
known today than his other work, it made a signi- published mostly in the Transactions of the Connecticut

4 INFLUENCE

Foreign Member of the Royal Society in 1897.[1] He

was elected as corresponding member of the Prussian
and French Academies of Science and received honorary
doctorates from the universities of Dublin,[73] Erlangen,
and Christiania[5] (now Oslo). The Royal Society further honored Gibbs in 1901 with the Copley Medal, then
regarded as the highest international award in the natural sciences,[2] noting that he had been the rst to apply the second law of thermodynamics to the exhaustive
discussion of the relation between chemical, electrical
and thermal energy and capacity for external work.[37]
Even though it had been immediately embraced by Gibbs, who remained in New Haven, was represented at
the award ceremony by Commander Richardson Clover,
Maxwell, Gibbss graphical formulation of the laws of
[74]
thermodynamics only came into widespread use in the the US naval attach in London.
mid 20th century, with the work of Lszl Tisza and In his autobiography, mathematician Gian-Carlo Rota
Herbert Callen.[71] According to James Gerald Crowther, tells of casually browsing the mathematical stacks of
Sterling Library and stumbling on a handwritten mailing list, attached to some of Gibbss course notes, which
in his later years [Gibbs] was a tall,
listed over two hundred notable scientists of his day, indignied gentleman, with a healthy stride and
cluding Poincar, Boltzmann, David Hilbert, and Ernst
ruddy complexion, performing his share of
Mach. From this, Rota concluded that Gibbss work was
household chores, approachable and kind (if
better known among the scientic elite of his day than
unintelligible) to students. Gibbs was highly
the published material suggests.[75] Lynde Wheeler reproesteemed by his friends, but American science
duces that mailing list in an appendix to his biography of
was too preoccupied with practical questions
Gibbs.[76] That Gibbs succeeded in interesting his Euroto make much use of his profound theoretical
pean correspondents in his work is demonstrated by the
work during his lifetime. He lived out his
fact that his monograph On the Equilibrium of Heteroquiet life at Yale, deeply admired by a few able
geneous Substances was translated into German (then
students but making no immediate impress
the leading language for chemistry) by Wilhelm Ostwald
on American science commensurate with his
in 1892 and into French by Henri Louis Le Chtelier in
genius.
1899.[77]
J. G. Crowther, 1937[8]
Academy, a journal edited by his librarian brother-inlaw, which was little read in the USA and even less so
in Europe. When Gibbs submitted his long paper on the
equilibrium of heterogeneous substances to the Academy,
both Elias Loomis and H. A. Newton protested that they
did not understand Gibbss work at all, but they helped
to raise the money needed to pay for the typesetting of
the many mathematical symbols in the paper. Several
Yale faculty members, as well as business and professional men in New Haven, contributed funds for that
purpose.[70]

4 Inuence
Gibbss most immediate and obvious inuence was on
physical chemistry and statistical mechanics, two disciplines which he greatly helped to found. During Gibbss
lifetime, his phase rule was experimentally validated by
Dutch chemist H. W. Bakhuis Roozeboom, who showed
how to apply it in a variety of situations, thereby assuring it of widespread use.[78] In industrial chemistry,
Gibbss thermodynamics found many applications during the early 20th century, from electrochemistry to the
development of the Haber process for the synthesis of
ammonia.[79]
Burlington House, site of the Royal Society of London, in 1873

On the other hand, Gibbs did receive the major honors

then possible for an academic scientist in the US. He
was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1879
and received the 1880 Rumford Prize from the American
Academy of Arts and Sciences for his work on chemical
thermodynamics.[72] He was also awarded honorary doctorates by Princeton University and Williams College.[5]
In Europe, Gibbs was inducted as honorary member of
the London Mathematical Society in 1892 and elected

When Dutch physicist J. D. van der Waals received the

1910 Nobel Prize for his work on the equation of state
for gases and liquids he acknowledged the great inuence of Gibbss work on that subject.[80] Max Planck received the 1918 Nobel Prize for his work on quantum
mechanics, particularly his 1900 paper on Plancks law
for quantized black-body radiation. That work was based
largely on the thermodynamics of Kirchho, Boltzmann,
and Gibbs. Planck declared that Gibbss name not only
in America but in the whole world will ever be reckoned
among the most renowned theoretical physicists of all

9
times.[81]

in theoretical physics and mathematics.

A. S. Wightman, 1990[42]

Initially unaware of Gibbss contributions in that eld,

Albert Einstein wrote three papers on statistical mechanics, published between 1902 and 1904. After reading
Gibbss textbook (which was translated into German by
Ernst Zermelo in 1905), Einstein declared that Gibbss
treatment was superior to his own and explained that he
would not have written those papers if he had known
Gibbss work.[84]
Gibbss early papers on the use of graphical methods in
thermodynamics reect a powerfully original understanding of what mathematicians would later call "convex analysis",[85] including ideas that, according to Barry Simon,
lay dormant for about seventy-ve years.[86] Important
mathematical concepts based on Gibbss work on thermodynamics and statistical mechanics include the Gibbs
lemma in game theory, the Gibbs inequality and Gibbs algorithm in information theory, as well as Gibbs sampling
in computational statistics.

Title page of Gibbss Elementary Principles in Statistical Mechanics, one of the founding documents of that discipline, published in 1902

The rst half of the 20th century saw the publication

of two inuential textbooks that soon came to be regarded as founding documents of chemical thermodynamics, both of which used and extended Gibbss work in
that eld: these were Thermodynamics and the Free Energy of Chemical Processes (1923), by Gilbert N. Lewis
and Merle Randall, and Modern Thermodynamics by the
Methods of Willard Gibbs (1933), by Edward A. Guggenheim.[82] Under the inuence of Lewis, William Giauque
(who had originally wanted to be a chemical engineer)
went on to become a professor of chemistry at Berkeley
and won the 1949 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his investigations into the properties of matter at temperatures
close to absolute zero, studies guided by the third law of
thermodynamics.[83]

The development of vector calculus was Gibbss other

great contribution to mathematics. The publication in
1901 of E. B. Wilsons textbook Vector Analysis, based
on Gibbss lectures at Yale, did much to propagate the use
of vectorial methods and notation in both mathematics
and theoretical physics, denitively displacing the quaternions that had until then been dominant in the scientic
literature.[87]
At Yale, Gibbs was also mentor to Lee De Forest, who
went on to invent the triode amplier and has been called
the father of radio.[88] De Forest credited Gibbss inuence for the realization that the leaders in electrical development would be those who pursued the higher theory
of waves and oscillations and the transmission by these
means of intelligence and power.[48] Another student of
Gibbs who played a signicant role in the development
of radio technology was Lynde Wheeler.[89]

Gibbs also had an indirect inuence on mathematical economics. He supervised the thesis of Irving Fisher, who
received the rst Ph.D. in economics from Yale in 1891.
In that work, published in 1892 as Mathematical Investigations in the Theory of Value and Prices, Fisher drew
a direct analogy between Gibbsian equilibrium in physGibbss work on statistical ensembles, as presented in his ical and chemical systems, and the general equilibrium
1902 textbook, has had a great impact in both theoreti- of markets, and he used Gibbss vectorial notation.[46][90]
cal physics and in pure mathematics.[42][64] According to Gibbss proteg Edwin Bidwell Wilson became, in turn,
mathematical physicist Arthur Wightman,
a mentor to leading American economist and Nobel Laureate Paul Samuelson.[91] In 1947, Samuelson published
It is one of the striking features of the
Foundations of Economic Analysis, based on his doctoral
work of Gibbs, noticed by every student of
dissertation, in which he used as epigraph a remark atthermodynamics and statistical mechanics,
tributed to Gibbs: Mathematics is a language. Samuelthat his formulations of physical concepts
son later explained that in his understanding of prices his
were so felicitously chosen that they have
debts were not primarily to Pareto or Slutsky, but to the
great thermodynamicist, Willard Gibbs of Yale.[92]
survived 100 years of turbulent development

10

COMMEMORATION

Mathematician Norbert Wiener cited Gibbss use of

probability in the formulation of statistical mechanics as
the rst great revolution of twentieth century physics
and as a major inuence 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.[93]

Commemoration
Building housing the Josiah Willard Gibbs Laboratories, at Yale
Universitys Science Hill

by Lars Onsager. Onsager, who much like Gibbs focused

on applying new mathematical ideas to problems in physical chemistry, won the 1968 Nobel Prize in chemistry.[97]
In addition to establishing the Josiah Willard Gibbs Laboratories and the J. Willard Gibbs Assistant Professorship
in Mathematics, Yale has hosted two symposia dedicated
to Gibbss life and work, one in 1989 and another on the
centenary of his death, in 2003.[98] Rutgers University endowed a J. Willard Gibbs Professorship of Thermomechanics, held as of 2014 by Bernard Coleman.[99]
Gibbs was elected in 1950 to the Hall of Fame for Great
Americans.[100] The oceanographic research ship USNS
Josiah Willard Gibbs (T-AGOR-1) was in service with
the United States Navy from 1958 to 1971.[101] Gibbs
crater, near the eastern limb of the Moon, was named in
the scientists honor in 1964.[102]

Bronze memorial tablet, originally installed in 1912 at the Sloane

Physics Laboratory, now at the entrance to the Josiah Willard
Gibbs Laboratories, Yale University.

When the German physical chemist Walther Nernst visited Yale in 1906 to give the Silliman lecture, he was surprised to nd no tangible memorial for Gibbs. He therefore donated his $500 lecture fee to the university to help
pay for a suitable monument. This was nally unveiled in
1912, in the form of a bronze bas-relief by sculptor Lee
Lawrie, installed in the Sloane Physics Laboratory.[94]
In 1910, the American Chemical Society established the
Willard Gibbs Award for eminent work in pure or applied
chemistry.[95] In 1923, the American Mathematical Society endowed the Josiah Willard Gibbs Lectureship, to
show the public some idea of the aspects of mathematics
and its applications.[96]

Edward Guggenheim introduced the symbol G for the

Gibbs free energy in 1933, and this was used also by Dirk
ter Haar in 1966.[103] This notation is now universal and is
recommended by the IUPAC.[104] In 1960, William Giauque and others suggested the name gibbs (abbreviated gbs.) for the unit of entropy, calorie / Kelvin,[105]
but this usage did not become common and the corresponding SI unit, Joule / Kelvin, carries no special name.
In 1954, a year before his death, Albert Einstein was
asked by an interviewer who were the greatest thinkers
that he had known. Einstein replied: "Lorentz", adding
I never met Willard Gibbs; perhaps, had I done so, I
might have placed him beside Lorentz.[106]

5.1 In literature

In 1909, the American historian and novelist Henry

Adams nished an essay entitled The Rule of Phase Applied to History, in which he sought to apply Gibbss
phase rule and other thermodynamic concepts to a genIn 1945, Yale University created the J. Willard Gibbs eral theory of human history. William James, Henry
Professorship in Theoretical Chemistry, held until 1973 Bumstead, and others criticized both Adamss tenuous

5.2

Gibbs stamp (2005)

grasp of the scientic 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.[107] The essay remained unpublished until it appeared posthumously in 1919, in The Degradation of the
Democratic Dogma, edited by Henry Adamss younger
brother Brooks.[108]

11
thermodynamic surface that Maxwell had built based on
Gibbss proposal. Rukeyser had called this surface a
statue of water[111] and the magazine saw in it the abstract creation of a great American scientist that lends itself to the symbolism of contemporary art forms.[112]
The artwork by Arthur Lidov also included Gibbss mathematical expression of the phase rule for heterogeneous
mixtures, as well as a radar screen, an oscilloscope waveform, Newtons apple, and a small rendition of a threedimensional phase diagram.[112]
Gibbss nephew, Ralph Gibbs Van Name, a professor of
physical chemistry at Yale, was unhappy with Rukeysers
biography, in part because of her lack of scientic training. Van Name had withheld the family papers from
her and, after her book was published in 1942 to positive literary but mixed scientic reviews, he tried to encourage Gibbss former students to produce a more technically oriented biography.[113] Rukeysers approach to
Gibbs was also sharply criticized by Gibbss former student and protg Edwin Wilson.[114] With Van Names
and Wilsons encouragement, physicist Lynde Wheeler
published a new biography of Gibbs in 1951.[115][116]
Both Gibbs and Rukeysers biography of him gure
prominently in the poetry collection True North (1997) by
Stephanie Strickland.[117] In ction, Gibbs appears as the
mentor to character Kit Traverse in Thomas Pynchon's
novel Against the Day (2006). That novel also prominently discusses the birefringence of Iceland spar, an optical phenomenon that Gibbs investigated.[118]

Cover of the June 1946 issue of Fortune, by artist Arthur Lidov, showing Gibbss thermodynamic surface of water and his
formula for the phase rule

In the 1930s, 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 Wind, published in 1939), as well as a booklength biography (Willard Gibbs, 1942).[109] According
to Rukeyser:
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 eect 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 eldan
imagination which for me, more than that of
any other gure in American thought, any
poet, or political, or religious gure, stands for
imagination at its essential points.
Muriel Rukeyser, 1949[110]

5.2 Gibbs stamp (2005)

In 2005, the United States Postal Service issued the American Scientists commemorative postage stamp series designed by artist Victor Stabin, depicting Gibbs, John von
Neumann, Barbara McClintock, and Richard Feynman.
The rst day of issue ceremony for the series was held on
May 4 at Yale Universitys Luce Hall and was attended by
John Marburger, scientic advisor to the President of the
United States, Rick Levin, president of Yale, and family
members of the scientists honored, including physician
John W. Gibbs, a distant cousin of Willard Gibbs.[119]

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.[120][121][122] The stamp identies
Gibbs as a thermodynamicist and features a diagram
from the 4th edition of Maxwells Theory of Heat, published in 1875, which illustrates Gibbss thermodynamic
surface for water.[121][122] Microprinting on the collar of
Gibbss portrait depicts his original mathematical equaIn 1946, Fortune magazine illustrated a cover story tion for the change in the energy of a substance in terms
on Fundamental Science with a representation of the of its entropy and the other state variables.[123]

12

Outline of principal work

[10] Wheeler 1998, pp. 2324

Physical chemistry: free energy, phase diagram,

phase rule, transport phenomena

[11] Rukeyser 1998, pp. 120, 142

[12] Wheeler 1998, pp. 3031

Statistical mechanics: statistical ensemble, phase

space, chemical potential, Gibbs entropy, Gibbs
paradox

[13] Rukeyser 1988, p. 143

Mathematics: Vector Analysis, convex analysis,

Gibbs phenomenon

[15] Rukeyser 1998, p. 134

Electromagnetism:
birefringence

[17] Wheeler 1998, p. 32

Maxwells

REFERENCES

equations,

See also

[14] Wheeler 1998, p. 30

[16] Wheeler 1998, p. 44

[18] Ziad Elmarsafy; Anna Bernard (13 June 2013). Debating

Orientalism. Palgrave Macmillan. p. 85. ISBN 978-1137-34111-2.

Gibbs-Helmholtz equation

[19] US Patent No. 53,971, Car Brake, Apr. 17, 1866. See
The Early Work of Willard Gibbs in Applied Mechanics,
(New York: Henry Schuman, 1947), pp. 5162.

Gibbs-Duhem equation

[20] Wheeler 1998, appendix II

Timeline of thermodynamics

[21] Wheeler 1998, p. 40

List of notable textbooks in statistical mechanics

[22] Wheeler 1998, p. 41

Timeline of United States discoveries

[23] Wheeler 1998, p. 42

List of theoretical physicists

[24] Rukeyser 1988, p. 151

List of things named after Josiah W. Gibbs

[25] Rukeyser 1988, pp. 158161

References

[1] Fellows of the Royal Society. London: Royal Society.

Archived from the original on 2015-03-16.
[2] J. Willard Gibbs. Physics History. American Physical
Society. Retrieved 16 Jun 2012.
[3] Copley Medal. Premier Awards. Royal Society. Retrieved 16 Jun 2012.
[4] Millikan, Robert A. (1938). Biographical Memoir of Albert Abraham Michelson, 18521931 (PDF). Biographical Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences of the
United States of America 19 (4): 121146.

[26] Klein, Martin J. (1990). The Physics of J. Willard Gibbs

in His Time. Proceedings of the Gibbs Symposium. pp.
122.
[27] Mayr, Otto (1971). Victorian Physicists and Speed Regulation: An Encounter between Science and Technology.
Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London 26 (2):
205228. doi:10.2307/531164. JSTOR 531164.
[28] Wheeler 1998, pp. 5455
[29] Rukeyser 1988, pp. 181182
[30] Wheeler 1998, pp. 5759

[5] Bumstead 1928

[31] Kriz, Ronald D. (2007). Thermodynamic Case Study:

Gibbs Thermodynamic Graphical Method. Virginia
Tech, Dept. of Engineering Science and Mechanics. Retrieved 16 Jun 2012.

[6] Cropper 2001, p. 121

[32] Rukeyser 1988, p. 201

[7] Linder, Douglas. Biography of Prof. Josiah Gibbs.

Famous American Trials: Amistad Trial. University of
Missouri-Kansas City School of Law. Retrieved 16 Jun
2012.

[33] Rukeyser 1988, p. 251

[8] O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F. (1997).

Josiah Willard Gibbs. The MacTutor History of Mathematics archive. University of St Andrews, Scotland.
School of Mathematics and Statistics. Retrieved 16 Jun
2012.

[36] Wheeler 1998, ch. V

[9] Rukeyser 1988, p. 104

[38] Wheeler 1998, p. 91

[34] Cropper 2001, p. 109

[35] Quoted in Rukeyser 1988, p. 233

[37] Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Gibbs, Josiah Willard".

Encyclopdia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.

13

[39] Wheeler 1998, p. 86

[40] Hewitt, E.; Hewitt, R. E. (1979).
The GibbsWilbraham phenomenon: An episode in Fourier analysis. Archive for History of Exact Sciences 21 (2): 129
160. doi:10.1007/BF00330404.
[41] Wheeler 1998, ch. VIII
[42] Wightman, Arthur S. (1990). On the Prescience of J.
Willard Gibbs. Proceedings of the Gibbs Symposium. pp.
2338.

[64] Wiener, Norbert (1961). II: Groups and Statistical Mechanics. Cybernetics: or Control and Communication in
the Animal and the Machine (2 ed.). MIT Press. ISBN
978-0-262-23007-0.
[65] See, e.g., Huang, Kerson (1987). Statistical Mechanics (2
ed.). John Wiley & Sons. pp. 140143. ISBN 0-47181518-7.
[66] Letter by Gibbs to Victor Schlegel, quoted in Wheeler
1998, pp. 107109
[67] Wheeler 1998, pp. 113116

[43] Klein 2008

[44] Wheeler 1998, ch. X
[45] Wilson 1931
[46] Fisher, Irving (1930). The application of mathematics to
the social sciences (PDF). Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society 36 (4): 225243. doi:10.1090/S00029904-1930-04919-8.
[47] Fisher, George W. (2005). Foreword. Celebrating Irving Fisher: The Legacy of a Great Economist. WileyBlackwell.
[48] Schi, Judith (November 2008). The man who invented
radio. Yale Alumni Magazine 72 (2). Retrieved 28 December 2013.
[49] Wheeler 1998, p. 197
[50] Josiah Willard Gibbs. Find A Grave. Retrieved 19 Jun
2012.
[51] Wheeler 1998, pp. 197199
[52] Wheeler 1998, pp. 179180
[53] Seeger 1974, pp. 1516
[54] Obituary Record of Graduates of Yale University, 1901
1910. New Haven: Tuttle, Morehouse & Taylor. 1910.
p. 238.
[55] Wheeler, 1998, p. 16
[56] Samuelson, Paul A. (1990). Gibbs in Economics. Proceedings of the Gibbs Symposium. p. 255.
[57] Rukeyser 1988, pp. 254, 345, 430
[58] Wheeler 1998, p. 95. See also the Collected Works, vol.
II
[59] Wheeler, 1998, p. 144
[60] Rukeyser 1988, p. 191
[61] Rukeyser 1988, p. 224
[62] Mogk, David. Gibbs Phase Rule: Where it all Begins.
Teaching Phase Equilibria. Science Education Resource
Center at Carleton College. Retrieved 25 Jan 2013.
[63] Poincar, Henri (1904). "The Principles of Mathematical Physics". The Foundations of Science (The Value of
Science). New York: Science Press. pp. 297320.

[68] Shmueli, Uri (2006). Reciprocal Space in Crystallography. International Tables for Crystallography B. pp. 29.
[69] Buchwald, Jed Z. (1994). The Creation of Scientic Effects: Heinrich Hertz and Electric Waves. University of
Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-07887-6.
[70] Rukeyser 1998, pp. 225226
[71] Wightman 1979, pp. xiii, lxxx
[72] Mller, Ingo (2007). A History of Thermodynamics - the
Doctrine of Energy and Entropy. Springer. ISBN 978-3540-46226-2.
[73] University intelligence The Times (London). Monday, 2
June 1902. (36783), p. 9.
[74] Rukeyser 1998, p. 345
[75] Rota, Gian-Carlo (1996).
Indiscrete Thoughts.
Birkhuser. p. 25. ISBN 978-0-8176-3866-5.
[76] Wheeler 1998, appendix IV
[77] Wheeler 1998, pp. 102104
[78] Crowther, James Gerald (1969) [1937]. Josiah Willard
Gibbs, 18391903. Famous American Men of Science.
Freeport, NY: Books for Libraries. pp. 277278.
[79] Haber, Fritz (1925). Practical results of the theoretical development of chemistry. Journal of the
Franklin Institute 199 (4): 437456. doi:10.1016/S00160032(25)90344-4.
[80] van der Waals, J. D. (1910). Nobel Lecture: The Equation of State for Gases and Liquids. Nobel Prize in
Physics. Nobel Foundation.
[81] Planck, Max (1915). Second Lecture: Thermodynamic
States of Equilibrium in Dilute Solutions. Eight Lectures
on Theoretical Physics. New York: Columbia University
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[82] Ott, Bevan J.; Boerio-Goates, Juliana (2000). Chemical Thermodynamics Principles and Applications. Academic Press. ISBN 0-12-530990-2.
[83] Tiselius, Arne (1949). Award Ceremony Speech. Nobel
Prize in Chemistry. Nobel Foundation.
[84] Navarro, Luis (1998).
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[85] Wightman 1979, pp. xxxxiv

[105] Giauque, W. F.; Hornung, E. W.; Kunzler, J. E.; Rubin, T. R. (1960). The Thermodynamic Properties of
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[107] Mindel, Joseph (1965). The Uses of Metaphor: Henry
Adams and Symbols of Science. Journal of the History
[88] Seeger 1974, p. 18
of Ideas 26 (1): 89102. doi:10.2307/2708401. JSTOR
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[108] Adams, Henry (1919). Adams, Brooks, ed. The Degradation of the Democratic Dogma. New York: Macmillan.
[90] Leontief, Wassily (1954). Mathematics in economics.
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[109] Gander, Catherine (2013). The Lives. Muriel Rukeyser
and Documentary: The Poetics of Connection. Edinburgh:
[91] Samuelson, Paul A. (1970). Maximum Principles in AnEdinburgh University Press. pp. 73120. ISBN 978-0alytical Economics (PDF). Nobel Prize Lecture. Nobel
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[113] Holeman, Heather L. (1986). Guide to the Gibbs-Van
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[95] Willard Gibbs Award. Chicago Section of the Ameri- [114] Wilson, Edwin B. (1944). Willard Gibbs. Scican Chemical Society. Chicago Section of the American
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doi:10.1126/science.99.2576.386. JSTOR 1669456.
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Wilson, Edwin B. (1951). Josiah Willard Gibbs. American Scientist 39 (2): 287289. JSTOR 27826371.
Strickland, Stephanie (1997). True North. Notre Dame,
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[99] Coleman, Bernard D. Faculty webpage. Rutgers Uni- [118] Pynchon, Thomas (2006). Against the Day. New York:
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versity, Dept. of Mechanics and Materials Science. Retrieved 24 Jan 2014.
[119] Yale scientist featured in new stamp series. Yale Bulletin
& Calendar 33 (28). 20 May 2005. Retrieved 30 Nov
[100] Johnson, D. Wayne. The Hall of Fame for Great Amer2012.
icans at New York University. Medal Collectors of
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[120] Iowa State Chemical Engineer Drives Issue of New
Stamp Honoring Father of Thermodynamics. College
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[102] Gibbs. Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature. Interna- [121] Hacker, Annette (11 Nov 2004). ISU professor helps
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ISBN 0-9678550- [123] Spakovszky, Zoltan (2005). Stamp of Authenticity
9-8.
(PDF). ASME Mechanical Engineering 128 (4): 7.

15

Bibliography

9.1

Primary

L. P. Wheeler, E. O. Waters and S. W. Dudley

(eds.),The Early Work of Willard Gibbs in Applied
Mechanics, (New York: Henry Schuman, 1947).
ISBN 1-881987-17-5. This contains previously unpublished work by Gibbs, from the period between
1863 and 1871.
J. W. Gibbs, "On the Equilibrium of Heterogeneous Substances", Transactions of the Connecticut
Academy of Arts and Sciences, 3, 108248, 343
524, (18741878). Reproduced in both The Scientic Papers (1906), pp. 55353 and The Collected
Works of J. Willard Gibbs (1928), pp. 55353.
E. B. Wilson, Vector Analysis, a text-book for the
use of students of Mathematics and Physics, founded
upon the Lectures of J. Willard Gibbs, (New Haven:
Yale University Press, 1929 [1901]).
J. W. Gibbs, Elementary Principles in Statistical Mechanics, developed with especial reference to the rational foundation of thermodynamics, (New York:
Dover Publications, 1960 [1902]).
Gibbss other papers are included in both:
The Scientic Papers of J. Willard Gibbs, in two volumes, eds. H. A. Bumstead and R. G. Van Name,
(Woodbridge, CT: Ox Bow Press, 1993 [1906]).
ISBN 0-918024-77-3, ISBN 1-881987-06-X. For
scans of the 1906 printing, see vol. I and vol. II.
The Collected Works of J. Willard Gibbs, in two volumes, eds. W. R. Longley and R. G. Van Name,
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1957 [1928]).
For scans of the 1928 printing, see vol. I and vol. II.

9.2

Secondary

H. A. Bumstead, Josiah Willard Gibbs, American Journal of Science (ser. 4) 16, 187202 (1903)
doi:10.2475/ajs.s4-16.93.187. Reprinted with some
additions in both The Scientic Papers, vol. I, pp.
xiiixxviiii (1906) and The Collected Works of J.
Willard Gibbs, vol. I, pp. xiiixxviiii (1928). Also
available here .
D. G. Caldi and G. D. Mostow (eds.), Proceedings of
the Gibbs Symposium, Yale University, May 1517,
1989, (American Mathematical Society and American Institute of Physics, 1990).
W. H. Cropper, The Greatest Simplicity: Willard
Gibbs, in Great Physicists, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), pp. 106123. ISBN 0-19517324-4

M. J. Crowe, A History of Vector Analysis: The Evolution of the Idea of a Vectorial System, (New York:
Dover, 1994 [1967]). ISBN 0-486-67910-1
J. G. Crowther, Famous American Men of Science,
(Freeport, NY: Books for Libraries Press, 1969
[1937]). ISBN 0-8369-0040-5
F. G. Donnan and A. E. Hass (eds.), A Commentary
on the Scientic Writings of J. Willard Gibbs, in two
volumes, (New York: Arno, 1980 [1936]). ISBN 0405-12544-5. Only vol I. is currently available online.
P. Duhem, Josiah-Willard Gibbs propos de la publication de ses Mmoires scientiques, (Paris: A. Herman, 1908).
C. S. Hastings, Josiah Willard Gibbs, Biographical Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, 6,
373393 (1909).
M. J. Klein, Gibbs, Josiah Willard, in Complete
Dictionary of Scientic Biography, vol. 5, (Detroit:
Charles Scribers Sons, 2008), pp. 386393.
M. Rukeyser, Willard Gibbs: American Genius,
(Woodbridge, CT: Ox Bow Press, 1988 [1942]).
ISBN 0-918024-57-9
R. J. Seeger, J. Willard Gibbs, American mathematical physicist par excellence, (Oxford and New York:
Pergamon Press, 1974). ISBN 0-08-018013-2
L. P. Wheeler, Josiah Willard Gibbs, The History
of a Great Mind, (Woodbridge, CT: Ox Bow Press,
1998 [1951]). ISBN 1-881987-11-6
A. S. Wightman, Convexity and the notion of equilibrium state in thermodynamics and statistical mechanics. Published as an introduction to R. B.
Israel, Convexity in the Theory of Lattice Gases,
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1979),
pp. ixlxxxv. ISBN 0-691-08209-X
E. B. Wilson, Reminiscences of Gibbs by a student
and colleague, Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society, 37, 401416 (1931).

10 External links
O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F., Josiah
Willard Gibbs, MacTutor History of Mathematics
archive, University of St Andrews.
"Josiah Willard Gibbs", in Selected Papers of Great
American Scientists, American Institute of Physics,
(2003 [1976])
Josiah Willard Gibbs at the Mathematics Genealogy
Project

16
Gibbs by Muriel Rukeyser
Reections on Gibbs: From Statistical Physics to the
Amistad by Leo Kadano, Prof.

10

EXTERNAL LINKS

17

11
11.1

Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses

Text

Josiah Willard Gibbs Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josiah_Willard_Gibbs?oldid=704403584 Contributors: Zundark, Enchanter,

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11.2

Images

File:A_young_Willard_Gibbs.jpg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a4/A_young_Willard_Gibbs.jpg License: Public domain Contributors: http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/history/Mathematicians/Gibbs.html Original artist:
Unknown<a href='//www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q4233718' title='wikidata:Q4233718'><img alt='wikidata:Q4233718' src='https://upload.
wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/ff/Wikidata-logo.svg/20px-Wikidata-logo.svg.png' width='20' height='11' srcset='https://
upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/ff/Wikidata-logo.svg/30px-Wikidata-logo.svg.png 1.5x, https://upload.wikimedia.
org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/ff/Wikidata-logo.svg/40px-Wikidata-logo.svg.png 2x' data-le-width='1050' data-le-height='590'
/></a>
File:Burlington_House_ILN_1873.jpg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6a/Burlington_House_ILN_1873.
jpg License: Public domain Contributors: Transferred from en.wikipedia.org Original artist: Original uploader was Honbicot at
en.wikipedia.org
File:Calcite.jpg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7a/Calcite.jpg License: Public domain Contributors: ? Original artist: ?
File:Commons-logo.svg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/4a/Commons-logo.svg License: CC-BY-SA-3.0 Contributors: ? Original artist: ?
File:Cross_product_parallelogram.svg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4e/Cross_product_parallelogram.
svg License: Public domain Contributors: Self-made, based on Image:Cross_parallelogram.png Original artist: User:Acdx
File:Fortune_June_1946.jpg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/28/Fortune_June_1946.jpg License: Fair use Contributors: http://c590298.r98.cf2.rackcdn.com/FTM1_004.JPG Also published in David Raizman, History of Modern Design: Graphics
and Products Since the Industrial Revolution, (London: Lawrence King, 2003), p. 257. Original artist: Arthur Lidov
File:Gibbs-Elementary_principles_in_statistical_mechanics.png Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/66/
Gibbs-Elementary_principles_in_statistical_mechanics.png License: Public domain Contributors: Library of the University of California
Original artist: J. Willard Gibbs
File:JWGibbs-bronze.jpg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/76/JWGibbs-bronze.jpg License: Public domain
Contributors: http://image.wikifoundry.com/image/1/SQSLtAyNGIAI8Jo3P_AaEA47158 Original artist: Bronze bas relief by Lee Lawrie.
Photographer unknown. Published without attribution or copyright notice in Lynde P. Wheeler, Josiah Willard Gibbs: The History of a
Great Mind, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1951), p. 87.
File:JWGibbs-student.jpg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/76/JWGibbs-student.jpg License: Public domain Contributors: Daguerreotype of the young Willard Gibbs, circa 1855. Reproduced without copyright notice or attribution
in Muriel Rukeyser, Willard Gibbs, (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Doran & Co., 1942), p. 202, and in Lynde P. Wheeler,
Josiah Willard Gibbs: The History of a Great Mind, (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1951), p. 19. Original artist:
Unknown<a href='//www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q4233718' title='wikidata:Q4233718'><img alt='wikidata:Q4233718' src='https://upload.
wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/ff/Wikidata-logo.svg/20px-Wikidata-logo.svg.png' width='20' height='11' srcset='https://
upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/ff/Wikidata-logo.svg/30px-Wikidata-logo.svg.png 1.5x, https://upload.wikimedia.
org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/ff/Wikidata-logo.svg/40px-Wikidata-logo.svg.png 2x' data-le-width='1050' data-le-height='590'
/></a>
File:JWGibbs-tutor.jpg
Source:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/68/JWGibbs-tutor.jpg
License:
Public domain Contributors:
http://yaleinsight.library.yale.edu/madid/oneItem.aspx?id=1770173 Original artist:
Unknown<a
href='//www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q4233718'
title='wikidata:Q4233718'><img
alt='wikidata:Q4233718'
src='https:

18

11

TEXT AND IMAGE SOURCES, CONTRIBUTORS, AND LICENSES

//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/ff/Wikidata-logo.svg/20px-Wikidata-logo.svg.png'
width='20'
height='11'
srcset='https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/ff/Wikidata-logo.svg/30px-Wikidata-logo.svg.png
1.5x,
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/ff/Wikidata-logo.svg/40px-Wikidata-logo.svg.png 2x' data-le-width='1050'
data-le-height='590' /></a>
File:JWGibbs.jpg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/99/JWGibbs.jpg License: Public domain Contributors:
Scanned from the frontispiece for Raymond J. Seeger, Men of Physics: J. Willard Gibbs, American Mathematical Physicist par excellence,
(Oxford and New York: Pergamon Press, 1974). Used also as the frontispiece for Lynde P. Wheeler, Josiah Willard Gibbs, The History of
a Great Mind, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1951). No copyright notice or attribution is given in either book. Original artist:
Unknown<a href='//www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q4233718' title='wikidata:Q4233718'><img alt='wikidata:Q4233718' src='https://upload.
wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/ff/Wikidata-logo.svg/20px-Wikidata-logo.svg.png' width='20' height='11' srcset='https://
upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/ff/Wikidata-logo.svg/30px-Wikidata-logo.svg.png 1.5x, https://upload.wikimedia.
org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/ff/Wikidata-logo.svg/40px-Wikidata-logo.svg.png 2x' data-le-width='1050' data-le-height='590'
/></a>
File:JWGibbsLabs.jpg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4c/JWGibbsLabs.jpg License: CC BY-SA 3.0 Contributors: Own work Original artist: Eb.hoop
File:JWgibbs-signature.jpg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5d/JWgibbs-signature.jpg License: Public domain Contributors: Frontispiece of The Scientic Papers of J. Willard Gibbs, in two volumes, eds. H. A. Bumstead and R. G. Van Name,
(London and New York: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1906) Original artist: Josiah Willard Gibbs. The original uploader was Bletchley at
English Wikipedia. 26 August 2008 (original upload date)
File:Josiah_Willard_Gibbs_-from_MMS-.jpg Source:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c7/Josiah_Willard_
Gibbs_-from_MMS-.jpg License: Public domain Contributors: Frontispiece of The Scientic Papers of J. Willard Gibbs, in two volumes,
eds. H. A. Bumstead and R. G. Van Name, (London and New York: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1906) Original artist: Unknown.
Uploaded by Serge Lachinov ( wiki)
File:Maxwell{}s_letters_plate_IV.jpg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/21/Maxwell%27s_letters_plate_
IV.jpg License: Public domain Contributors: P. M. Harman (ed.), The Scientic Letters and Papers of James Clerk Maxwell, vol. 3, 18741879, (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2002), p. 232, plate IV. Original artist: James Clerk Maxwell (1831 1879)
File:Sine_integral.svg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9c/Sine_integral.svg License: CC BY-SA 3.0 Contributors: Own work This image has been created using python and can also be plotted using the following matlab source code. Original
artist: Krishnavedala
File:SloaneLab.jpg Source:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/67/SloaneLab.jpg License:
Public domain
Contributors:
http://yaleinsight.library.yale.edu/madid/oneItem.aspx?id=1780877
Original
artist:
Unknown<a
href='//www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q4233718'
title='wikidata:Q4233718'><img
alt='wikidata:Q4233718'
src='https://upload.
wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/ff/Wikidata-logo.svg/20px-Wikidata-logo.svg.png'
width='20'
height='11'
srcset='https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/ff/Wikidata-logo.svg/30px-Wikidata-logo.svg.png
1.5x,
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/ff/Wikidata-logo.svg/40px-Wikidata-logo.svg.png 2x' data-le-width='1050'
data-le-height='590' /></a>
File:Wikiquote-logo.svg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fa/Wikiquote-logo.svg License: Public domain
Contributors: ? Original artist: ?
File:Wikisource-logo.svg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4c/Wikisource-logo.svg License: CC BY-SA 3.0
Contributors: Rei-artur Original artist: Nicholas Moreau
File:Wykres_Gibbsa.svg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3c/Wykres_Gibbsa.svg License: Public domain
Contributors: (based nn raster werion Gibbs-plot.jpg}. The original image appeared in Gibbs, J.W. (1873). "A method of geometrical
representation of the thermodynamic properties of substances by means of surfaces". Transactions of the Connecticut Academy of Arts and
Sciences 2: 382-404. Original artist: Diagram by J. Willard Gibbs (1839 1903), digitalized by Fraximus

11.3

Content license

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