Josiah Willard Gibbs

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Personal Life

Early Life

Josiah Willard Gibbs was born to Josiah Gibbs Sr. and Mary Anna Van Cleve on February 11, 1839 in New Haven, Connecticut. As a child he lived a relatively privileged life with his four older sisters. Education was encouraged in his family as not only was his father a professor at Yale, but also had one relative who held a position as president of Harvard and another relative who was the first president of Princeton. His classmates at The Hopkins School, a small private school in New Haven, often described him as quiet and "intellectually absorbed." His fragile pulmonary and overall health likely contributed to his introverted demeanor as it prevented him from interacting with his peers.

Later Life

Gibbs continued his pursuit of education when he matriculated to Yale when he was only 15 years old (in 1854). There, he began to pursue engineering research while also receiving numerous awards for his exceptional academic performance in Latin and Mathematics. After successfully completing his undergraduate career, Gibbs continued with graduate studies at Yale. In 1863, at the age of 19, Josiah Willard Gibbs became the first American to receive a doctorate in engineering. It is evident that his academic accomplishments were made possible through his intellect and work ethic, but it is worth noting that his health problems prevented him from serving in the Civil War and allowed him to focus on his studies.

Several years after finishing his graduate work and completing three years as a tutor at Yale, Josiah Willard Gibbs journeyed to Europe with his sisters where he attended lectures on mathematics and physics. After his three years abroad, Gibbs returned to America with a more european view of science. This was one of the reasons that despite his future scientific work, notoriety came very slowly, if at all, in the United States.

Gibbs became a pioneer in another aspect of academia when in 1871, he became the first professor of Mathematical Physics in the United States. Due to his financial security from his inheritance from his parents, he taught without pay for nine years at Yale.

During his remaining years, Josiah Willard Gibbs maintained his reclusive lifestyle. Not only did he never marry, but he also remained living in his childhood home with his older sister and her husband. Despite a few vacations to the Adirondacks and New Hampshire, Gibbs spent the rest of his life in New Haven either working at Yale or in his home. He died April 28th 1903 from acute intestinal obstruction.

Scientific _______

Early Scientific Career

Despite his intellect, Josiah Willard Gibbs did not attract much attention in the scientific community for several reasons. Two of these reasons were American colleges at the time did not encourage research and academia focused more on "practical" questions rather than theoretical ones. However, due to his theoretical capabilities, he was able to

-applied his command of theory to James Watt’s steam engine governor -through analyzing its equilibrium, began to develop method of calculating equilibriums of chemical processes