Gibbs, Josiah Willard 1839-1903
US theoretical physicist

Born in New Haven, Connecticut, he graduated from Yale. A thesis treating the design of gears exhibited his geometrical expertise and earned him the first Yale engineering doctorate (1863). His academic career continued with an (initially) unsalaried appointment to the Yale chair of mathematical physics (1871) which he retained until his death, in spite of more lucrative offers from the new Johns Hopkins University. Thermodynamics was his main topic of scientific inquiry, and his most famous work appeared in the vast memoir On the Equilibrium of Heterogeneous Substances (1876-78). This paper introduced a concept of 'chemical potential' which has been a foundation for physical chemistry. Studies of the electromagnetic theory of light, advocacy of the use of vectors and the publication of a book of Elementary Principles in Statistical Mechanics (1902) show the diversity of Gibbs's activities.

Bibliography: Lynde Phelps Wheeler, Josiah Willard Gibbs (1970)