Scientists
J. Willard Gibbs
Citation Formats
General Reference
APA Style
BibTeX
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 Cross-Tradition Connections
Proposed
Gibbs arrived at the same statistical connection independently of Boltzmann and gave the field its name; per Boltzmann's own MacTutor biography.
Works In
Gibbs's 1876 to 1878 papers founded chemical thermodynamics; his existing Works In edge to Materials Science, for the phase rule, is left untouched.
Sources
Reader Challenges (0 open reader challenges)
No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.
Sign in to dispute this or suggest a correction.
View At A Past Year
The atlas records no dated fact of its own for this entry, so there is no other year to choose.