Josiah Willard Gibbs (1839 to 1903) was an American scientist whose 1876 to 1878 papers, titled "On the Equilibrium of Heterogeneous Substances," founded chemical thermodynamics, including the phase rule relating a system's degrees of freedom to its number of components and coexisting phases. The rule underlies every phase diagram materials science uses to predict which structures a given composition will form.
Facts
FieldChemical Thermodynamics 1 Field
Field (category) Connections
Associated With
Phase Diagram, Concepts Gibbs's phase rule, from his 1876 to 1878 papers on heterogeneous equilibrium, gave phase diagrams their theoretical foundation by relating phases, components and degrees of freedom.
Proposed
Gibbs arrived at the same statistical connection independently of Boltzmann and gave the field its name; per Boltzmann's own MacTutor biography.
Source Ludwig Boltzmann (MacTutor)
Works In
Source J. Willard Gibbs (Britannica)
Gibbs's 1876 to 1878 papers founded chemical thermodynamics; his existing Works In edge to Materials Science, for the phase rule, is left untouched.
Source J. Willard Gibbs (Britannica)
Sources
1. J. Willard Gibbs (Britannica)
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