Josiah Willard Gibbs
1839-1903
American Theoretical Physicist and Theoretical Chemist
J. Willard Gibbs is regarded as one of the greatest American scientists of the nineteenth century and one of the founders of modern physical chemistry. His theoretical and mathematical treatments of physical and chemical processes involving heat and work developed the science of thermodynamics into one of the most useful tools available to physicists and chemists.
Gibbs, whose father was a professor of sacred literature at Yale University, grew up in a highly intellectual environment. He developed into a shy, somewhat frail young man, deeply involved in intellectual pursuits. He graduated from Yale, then, in 1863, received the first doctorate of engineering awarded in the United States. In that same year he became a tutor at Yale.
After Gibbs's parents died and he and his two sisters inherited their estate, the three traveled together to Europe in 1866. They stayed for three years, giving Gibbs the opportunity to attend the lectures of some of Europe's most outstanding mathematicians and physicists.
Returning to the United States, Gibbs continued his work with engineering problems. As a result of an investigation of steam engines, he became interested in the science of thermodynamics, which involves the study of heat and work and their interchange. This interest became the basis of most of his lifelong scientific endeavors.
In 1871 Gibbs was named professor of mathematical physics at Yale and continued to devote his research efforts to the theoretical treatment of thermodynamic phenomena. In 1872 he published a theoretical treatment of the thermodynamics of the adsorption of substances on surfaces, and in 1876 produced his best known work, On the Equilibrium of Heterogeneous Substances, a general theoretical treatment of thermodynamics.
In 1878 Gibbs published his phase rule in Transactions of the Connecticut Academy, a journal that was so obscure that his work went unnoticed for 20 years. The phase rule relates thenumber of intensive quantities (e.g., temperature and pressure) and the number of chemical components in a system with the number of phases of a substance (e.g., liquid or gas) that may exist simultaneously. Gibbs's phase rule has found considerable application in the development and improvement of industrial processes.
Josiah Gibbs. (The Library of Congress. Reproduced by permission.)Perhaps his most outstanding contribution was the introduction of the concept of chemical potential or free energy, now universally called Gibbs free energy in his honor. The Gibbs free energy relates the tendency of a physical or chemical system to simultaneously lower its energy and increase its disorder, or entropy, in a spontaneous natural process. Gibbs's approach permits the calculation of the change in free energy that occurs in such a process—for example, a chemical reaction—and, consequently, enables prediction as to whether and how rapidly the process may be expected to occur. The use of this concept revolutionized the scientific understanding of those chemical and physical processes that involve changes in heat and work. Since virtually all chemical processes and many physical ones involve such changes, his work has significantly impacted both the theoretical and empirical aspects of these sciences.
Another of Gibbs's major contributions was the development of statistical mechanics and its application to thermodynamic systems. Statistical mechanics has subsequently found extensive application in other fields, including quantum mechanics.
Although the importance of Gibbs's accomplishments was immediately recognized in Europe, recognition came more slowly in America. This was partially due to the more empirical bias of American science, but it may also have been the result of his withdrawn nature. He remained a bachelor, living with his sister's family throughout his life.
In 1881 Gibbs received the Rumford medal from the American Academy in Boston and, in 1901, the Copley medal from the Royal Society in England.
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