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J. W. Gibbs. Image by Unknown –

Top 10 Surprising Facts about Josiah Willard

Josiah Willard Gibbs was on born February 11, 1839, in New Haven, Connecticut, the U.S. He died on April 28, 1903, in New Haven. He was a theoretical physicist and chemist. He was also one of the greatest scientists in the United States in the 19th century. His application of thermodynamic theory converted a large part of physical chemistry from an empirical into a deductive science.

Gibbs was the fourth child and only son of Josiah Willard Gibbs, Sr., and Mary Anna Van Cleve. He was a friendly youth but was also withdrawn and intellectually absorbed. This circumstance and his delicate health kept him from participating much in student and social life.

He was educated at the local Hopkins Grammar School.  In 1854 entered Yale, where he won a succession of prizes. After graduating, Gibbs pursued research in engineering. His thesis on the design of gearing was distinguished by its logical rigor. He employed geometrical methods of analysis. After receiving a doctorate in engineering he was appointed a tutor at Yale in the same year. He devoted some attention to engineering inventions.

1. Willard was from an intellectual family

Willard came from a prosperous and intellectual family. It had produced distinguished American clergymen and academics since the 17th century. His mother had come from an eminent family and was an amateur ornithologist. His father was an expert on languages and linguistics. He was also a Professor of Sacred Literature at Yale University鈥檚 School of Divinity.

Willard Gibbs was privately educated at Hopkins Grammar School.  At age 15 enrolled at Yale University. He was awarded his degree in 1858. He was awarded prizes in Mathematics and Latin.

He immediately began working for an Engineering Ph.D. at Yale, which he was awarded in 1863. At the time he was 24 years. This was the first ever award of an Engineering Ph.D. to any student at an American university.

His highly mathematical thesis had the title: 鈥淥n the Forms of the Teeth of Wheels in Spur Gearing.鈥�

2. He was quiet but impactful

Josiah Willard Gibbs as a student. Image by Unknown author –

Socially, Gibbs was quiet and bookish, a somewhat reserved student. Academically, he was brilliant. There was a huge contrast between Gibbs’s quiet, solitary life in turn of the century New England, and the great international impact of his ideas.

His work was mostly theoretical. The practical side became evident with the development of industrial chemistry during the first half of the 20th century.

Willard as a scientist is not widely known. This could be because he was a quiet, bookish figure, with no interest in self-promotion. He rarely socialized and never. He wrote in a terse mathematician鈥檚 style that tended to conceal the intellectual treasures his work contained.

3.  Willard was a simple man

When his mother died, she left Willard and his sisters a sizable inheritance. Willard rarely left America except for his annual summer holidays in northern New England. Other times when he had to leave New Haven were to lecture or attend a meeting.

He lived and lived in the house in which he had grown up. The house was less than a block away from the college building. Since he was never married, he shared the home with his sister and her family.

He held a position as a professor of physics at Yale. For nine years he went without a salary.

4. Einstein called him the greatest mind in American history

J. Willard Gibbs. Image by Unknown author –

Albert Einstein was initially not aware of Willard鈥檚 work. He wrote and published some papers on statistical mechanics. After reading Willard鈥檚 work, he declared that it was superior to his. He continued to say that he would not have written his papers if he had known Willard鈥檚 existed.

Einstein was a widely acknowledged scientist. He is said to be the greatest and most influential physicist. Getting acknowledgment from such an accomplished person was a big deal.

Yale awarded Gibbs the first American doctorate in engineering. He received what was then considered the highest honor awarded by the international scientific community, the Copley Medal of the Royal Society of London. This was for his contributions to mathematical physics.

5. Willard did not volunteer in the Civil War

Willard was a sickly child. He often had pulmonary problems. Physicians were often afraid that he would die of tuberculosis just like his mother had.

He also suffered from astigmatism. This ailment is an imperfection in the curvature of the eye that causes blurred distance and near vision.  Today this disease is treatable but in those days it was unfamiliar to oculists. He was forced to diagnose himself and grind his own lenses.

His delicate health and imperfect eyesight would explain why he did not volunteer to fight in the Civil War of 1861鈥�1865. He remained at Yale for the duration of the war.

6. He was a loner

Willard spent his whole life living in the same house that his father had built. It was only a short distance from the school Gibbs had attended. It was also the same one that he worked for his whole life. The only time he had left home was in his early days for Europe. Occasional summer vacations here and there were it.

He joined a church when in school and which he continued to attend for the rest of his life. Little is known about his political and religious views. Just like many at the time he was not happy with the growing corruption. He did vote in elections. Largely he kept to himself.

7. Willard is not given the recognition he deserves

The bronze tablet of Josiah Willard Gibbs was paid for from a gift by Walther Nerst. Image by Eb.hoop –

He worked at a time when rigorous theoretical science was not popular in the United States. Many did not understand his work. He made no effort to popularize, simplify it or make it easily accessible.

Dutch physicist J. D. van der Waals received the 1910 Nobel Prize for his work on the equation of state for gases and liquids. He acknowledged the great influence of Gibbs’s work on that subject.

Einstein did salute the man for his great work he had done. Walther Nernst was in shock when he visited Yale and could not find any tangible memorial for Willard. He donated $500 for a suitable monument.

8. His work was full of symbols that were hard to deduce

Cover page of “Elementary principles in statistical mechanics” by J. Willard Gibbs. Image by  Library of the University of California –

His edited work was published in a not so read journal.  He submitted his long paper on the equilibrium of heterogeneous substances. Both Elias Loomis and H. A. Newton protested that they did not understand Gibbs’s work at all.  They did help raise the money needed to pay for the typesetting of the many mathematical symbols in the paper.

When he published his research, it was often little understood. James Clerk Maxwell was one of the few who understood and appreciated its significance. Maxwell often joked that Newton if alive, alone would have understood Willard鈥檚 work. Newton was another great scientist that was often jested upon that even he would not understand his own work.

9. Willard was a mentor to great minds

Willard was a mentor to several people who in turn made great advancements in science. At Yale, Lee De Forest went on to invent the triode amplifier. He is called the father of radio. Another student of Gibbs, Lynde Wheeler, played a significant role in the development of radio technology.

Willard also had an indirect influence on mathematical economics. He supervised the thesis of Irving Fisher. Fisher drew a direct analogy between Gibbsian equilibrium in physical and chemical systems, and the general equilibrium of markets. He used Gibbs’s vectorial notation.

Willard’s prot茅g茅 Edwin Bidwell Wilson became, in turn, became a mentor to a leading American economist Laureate Paul Samuelson. Samuelson explained that in his understanding of prices his debts were to the great thermodynamicist, Willard Gibbs of Yale.

10. He was the first American to be awarded a PhD in engineering

Josiah Gibbs. Image by Internet Archive Book Images –

In 1863, Gibbs received the first Doctorate of Philosophy in engineering granted in the US. This was after writing a thesis entitled On the Form of the Teeth of Wheels in Spur Gearing. He used geometrical techniques to investigate the optimum design for gears.

In 1861, Yale had become the first US University to offer a Ph.D. degree. He became the fifth Ph.D. granted in the US in any subject.