Josiah Willard Gibbs

(1839 – 1903)

Josiah Willard Gibbs lived virtually all his life in his boyhood home in New Haven, Connecticut, and worked under administrators who were apparently unaware of his existence. The significance of his discoveries was largely unappreciated during his lifetime; nevertheless, he has come to be recognized as one of the greatest physical scientists America has ever produced.

Gibbs was born in New Haven on February 11, 1839. He was one of five children, and his parents’ only son. Gibbs’ father, whose name was also Josiah Willard Gibbs, was a professor of sacred literature at Yale. The younger Josiah was granted his Ph.D. in engineering from Yale in 1863. His was one of the first doctorates to be awarded in the United States. After further study in France and Germany, Gibbs returned to New Haven and in 1871 was appointed professor of mathematical physics at Yale.

Gibbs, who never married, lived with his two surviving sisters in the home they inherited from their parents. It was fortunate that Gibbs’ parents left a sizeable estate, since for his first nine years at Yale Gibbs received no compensation for his services.

Though he was grossly undervalued by the college administrators, it was during his first years at Yale that Gibbs produced the series of treatises on thermodynamics that formed the basis of his reputation. Published between 1876 and 1878 in the relatively obscure Transactions of the Connecticut Academy of Sciences, Gibbs’ memoirs constructed the mathematical foundation of chemical thermodynamics. It has been estimated that approximately one-fourth of the total industry in the United States relies on Gibbs’ theoretical discoveries.

Among Gibbs’ contributions to mathematics is the development of modern vector analysis. Gibbs’ principles of vector analysis first appeared in 1881, in a pamphlet he distributed to his classes. However it was not until 1901, when one of his students published a text incorporating Gibbs’ lectures, that his theories were generally accepted.

Though Gibbs was revered by his students, he was apparently a nonentity to his superiors. When a German mathematician visiting Yale in 1893 remarked that he would have liked to have met with Gibbs, bewildered university officials replied, “Who?” Gibbs was eventually granted a salary from Yale, but only after receiving an offer from Johns Hopkins University. Gibbs elected to remain in New Haven, at substantially less pay than he would have received had he been willing to move to Baltimore.

Gibbs died in New Haven on April 28, 1903, after a brief illness.

Links

http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Gibbs.html
http://www.aip.org/history/gap/Gibbs/Gibbs.html
http://www.aps.org/programs/outreach/history/historicsites/gibbs.cfm

References

• Asimov, Isaac. Asimov’s Biographical Encyclopedia of Science and Technology. Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1972.
• Burton, David M. The History of Mathematics. 2d ed. Dubuque, IA: Wm. C. Brown Publishers, 1988.
• Eves, Howard. An Introduction to the History of Mathematics. 6th ed. Fort Worth: Saunders College Publishing, 1992.
• Gillispie, Charles Coulston, ed. Dictionary of Scientific Biography. Vol. V. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1972.
• Simmons, George F. Calculus Gems: Brief Lives and Memorable Mathematics. New York: McGraw-Hill, Inc., 1992.