Josiah Willard Gibbs

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For Josiah Willard Gibbs, Sr., see Willard Gibbs (linguist).
Willard Gibbs
Scientist
Born February 11, 1839
New Haven, Connecticut, USA
Died April 28, 1903
New Haven, Connecticut, USA

Josiah Willard Gibbs (February 11, 1839 New Haven – April 28, 1903 New Haven) was one of the very first American theoretical physicists and chemists. As a mathematical physicist, he devised much of the theoretical foundation for chemical thermodynamics. As a mathematician, he was an inventor of vector analysis. He spent his entire career at Yale, which awarded him the first American Ph.D. in engineering. The J. Willard Gibbs Professorship in Theoretical Chemistry at Yale was created in his honour.

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[edit] Tributes

   
“
 …who founded a new department of chemical science which is becoming comparable in importance with that created by Lavoisier.
   
”
– Henri Louis Le Chatelier, 1885 formulated Le Chatelier's principle
   
“
 …whose name not only in America but in the whole world will ever be reckoned among the most renowned theoretical physicists of all times…
   
”
– Max Planck, 1918 Nobel prize physics

[edit] Biography

Gibbs' s career can be divided into four phases:

He also wrote classic textbooks on this last subject.

[edit] Early years

Gibbs in his youth.
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Gibbs in his youth.

Gibbs was the seventh in a long line of American academics stretching back to the 17th century. His father, a professor of sacred literature at the Yale Divinity School, is now most remembered for his involvement in the Amistad trial. Although the father was also named Josiah Willard, the son is never referred to as "Josiah Willard Gibbs, Jr." Five other members of Gibb's extended family were named Josiah Willard Gibbs. His mother was the daughter of a Yale graduate in literature.

After attending the Hopkins School, Gibbs matriculated at Yale College at the age of 15. He graduated in 1858 near the top of his class, and was awarded prizes in mathematics and Latin.

[edit] Middle years

In 1863, Gibbs obtained the first Ph.D. degree in engineering ever awarded in the USA. He then tutored at Yale, two years in Latin and one year in what was then called natural philosophy, now comparable to the natural sciences, particularly physics. In 1866 he went to Europe to study, spending one year each at Paris, Berlin, and Heidelberg, where he was influenced by Kirchhoff and Helmholtz. At the time, German academics were the leading authorities in chemistry, thermodynamics, and theoretical natural science in general. These three years account for nearly all of his life spent outside of New Haven.

Founder of Chemical Thermodynamics
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Founder of Chemical Thermodynamics

In 1869, he returned to Yale and was appointed Professor of Mathematical Physics in 1871, the first such professorship in the United States and a position he held for the rest of his life. The appointment was unpaid at first, a situation common in Germany and otherwise not unusual at the time, because Gibbs had yet to publish anything. Between 1876 and 1878 Gibbs wrote a series of papers collectively titled On the Equilibrium of Heterogeneous Substances, now deemed one of the greatest scientific achievements of the 19th century and one of the foundations of physical chemistry. In these papers Gibbs applied thermodynamics to interpret physicochemical phenomena, successfully explaining and interrelating what had previously been a mass of isolated facts.

"It is universally recognised that its publication was an event of the first 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 difficult reading for anyone, and especially so for students of experimental chemistry whom it most concerns... " (J J O'Connor and E F Robertson, J. Willard Gibbs)

Some important topics covered in his other papers on heterogeneous equilibria include:

Gibbs also wrote on theoretical thermodynamics. In 1873, he published a paper on the geometric representation of thermodynamic quantities. This paper inspired Maxwell to make (with his own hands) a plaster cast illustrating Gibbs' construct which he then sent to Gibbs. Yale proudly owns it to this day.

[edit] Later years

In 1880, the new Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland offered Gibbs a position paying $3000. Yale responded by raising his salary to $2000, and he did not leave New Haven. From 1880 to 1884, Gibbs combined the ideas of two mathematicians, the quaternions of William Rowan Hamilton and the exterior algebra of Hermann Grassmann to obtain vector analysis (independently formulated by the British mathematical physicist and engineer Oliver Heaviside). Gibbs designed vector analysis to clarify and advance mathematical physics.

From 1882 to 1889, Gibbs refined his vector analysis, wrote on optics, and developed a new electrical theory of light. He deliberately avoided theorizing about the structure of matter (a wise decision, given the revolutionary developments in subatomic particles and quantum mechanics that began around the time of his death), developing a theory of greater generality than any other theory of matter extant in his day. He wrote classic textbooks on statistical mechanics, which Yale published in 1902. Gibbs also contributed to crystallography and applied his vector methods to the determination of planetary and comet orbits.

Information about the names and careers of Gibbs's students is not readily available. He is known to have strongly influenced the education of the economist Irving Fisher, who completed a Yale Ph.D. in 1896.

Gibbs never married, living all his life in his childhood home with a sister and his brother-in-law, the Yale librarian.

[edit] Scientific recognition

USA stamp commemorating thermodynamicist J.W. Gibbs
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USA stamp commemorating thermodynamicist J.W. Gibbs

Recognition 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 USA and even less so in Europe. At first, only a few European theoretical physicists and chemists, such as the Scot James Clerk Maxwell, paid any attention to his work. Only when Gibbs's papers were translated into German (then the leading language for chemistry) by Wilhelm Ostwald in 1892, and into French by Henri Louis le Chatelier in 1899, did his ideas receive wide currency in Europe. His theory of the phase rule was experimentally validated by the works of H. W. Bakhuis Roozeboom, who showed how to apply it in a variety of situations, thereby assuring it of 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. (That scientific teaching and research are a fundamental part of the modern university emerged in Germany during the 19th century and only gradually spread from there to the USA.) Gibbs position at Yale and in American science generally has been described as follows:

"In his later years he was a tall, dignified gentleman, with a healthy stride and ruddy complexion, performing his share of household chores, approachable and kind (if unintelligible) to students. Gibbs was highly esteemed by his friends, but American science was too preoccupied with practical questions to make much use of his profound theoretical work during his lifetime. He lived out his quiet life at Yale, deeply admired by a few able students but making no immediate impress on American science commensurate with his genius." (Crowther 1969: nnn)

Gibbs died soon after the inauguration of the Nobel Prize and so did not win it. In 1901, however, he did receive the highest possible honor granted by the international scientific community of his day, the Copley Medal of the Royal Society of the United Kingdom.

In 1945, Yale University created the J. Willard Gibbs Professorship in Theoretical Chemistry, held until 1973 by Lars Onsager, who won the 1968 Nobel Prize in chemistry. This appointment was a very fitting one, as Onsager, like Gibbs, was primarily involved in the application of new mathematical ideas to problems in physical chemistry, especially statistical mechanics.

On May 4, 2005 the United States Postal Service issued the American Scientists commemorative postage stamp series, depicting Gibbs, John von Neumann, Barbara McClintock and Richard Feynman.

[edit] See also

[edit] Quotations

  • "Mathematics is a language." (reportedly spoken by Gibbs at a Yale faculty meeting)
  • "A mathematician may say anything he pleases, but a physicist must be at least partially sane."
  • "It has been said that 'the human mind has never invented a labor-saving machine equal to algebra.' If this be true, it is but natural and proper that an age like our own, characterized by the multiplication of labor-saving machinery, should be distinguished by the unexampled development of this most refined and most beautiful of machines." (1887, quoted in Meinke and Tucker 1992: 190)

[edit] References

  1. ^ J J O'Connor and E F Robertson, "J. Willard Gibbs".

[edit] Further reading

Primary:

Secondary :

  • Online bibliography.
  • American Institute of Physics, 2003 (1976). Josiah Willard Gibbs 1839-1903.
  • Bumstead, H. A., 1903, "Josiah Willard Gibbs," American Journal of Science XVI(4).
  • Crowther, J. G., 1969. Famous American Men of Science. ISBN 0-8369-0040-5
  • Donnan, F. G., and A. E. Haas, 1936. A Commentary on the Scientific Writings of J Willard Gibbs. ISBN 0-405-12544-5
  • Longley, W. R., and R. G. Van Name, eds., 1928. The Collected Works of J Willard Gibbs.
  • Meinke, K., and Tucker, J. V., 1992, "Universal Algebra" in Abramsky, S., Gabbay, D., and Maibaum, T. S. E., eds., Handbook of Logic in Computer Science: Vol. I. Oxford Univ. Press: 189-411.
  • Muriel Rukeyser, 1942. Willard Gibbs: American Genius. Woodbridge, CT: Ox Bow Press. ISBN 0-918024-57-9.
  • Seeger, Raymond John, 1974. J. Willard Gibbs, American mathematical physicist par excellence. Pergamon Press. ISBN 0-08-018013-2
  • Wheeler, L. P., 1952. Josiah Willard Gibbs, The History of a Great Mind. ISBN 1-881987-11-6

[edit] External links

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