Gibbs, Josiah Willard (JOzeph Gibbs)

(11.II.1839 - 28.IV.1903)
. In 1901, the Royal Society awarded the Gibbs Medal Kopleya - the most honorable international award, established earlier Nobolevskih premiums.
. One of the founders of chemical thermodynamics, Josiah Willard Gibbs was born in 1839 in a small American town of New Haven
. Nineteen years old, he graduated from Yale University, and within five years became a doctor of philosophy and began to teach students math.
. Later, he perfected his education in France, the Sorbonne and College de France, as well as in Germany, in the famous Berlin and Heidelberg University
.
Finally, Gibbs received a professorship in his native Yale University and began an independent investigation of thermal processes in chemistry. And here he was able to achieve outstanding results. Name American Gibbs was awarded many of the values and concepts of a new branch of chemistry - the chemical thermodynamics (Gibbs energy, the triangle of Gibbs, Gibbs phase rule).
In forty years, Gibbs was elected to the National Academy of Sciences of the USA, although before this was published in print only three scientific articles. No wonder: Gibbs wrote rarely, but the "tag". For example, for as long as 13 years (from 1890 to 1903.), He wrote a total of eight short articles and one book.
. In 1880 Josiah Gibbs became a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences - authoritative scientific society, founded in Boston as early as 1780.
. Gibbs family consisted of his two sisters and brother
. They lived together all their lives in the same house in New Haven. From the house was half block to school, where he studied Gibbs in his youth, one block to the college, where he spent his student years, two blocks to the university where he taught, and the same amount to the cemetery where he was buried. A quiet provincial town - the American "backwoods" - Gibbs gave everything you need for: a quiet measured life among family, required books in the library, free time for reflection, beautiful surroundings for walking. At leisure Gibbs sometimes treated households own delicious prepared salads, which are said to be totally scientific - "heterogeneous equilibrium" ...
Gibbs distinguished modesty, affability in communicating with people. He had never shown any arrogance or ambition. Even in old age he lost his slim figure, was always carefully dressed and groomed. He never in a hurry, and yet never nowhere late.
In 1901, the Royal Society awarded the Gibbs Medal Kopleya - the most honorable international award, established earlier Nobolevskih prizes. And this was the last award of the Gibbs: two years later, in 1903, he died. It took almost half a century to merit scholar have been recognized not only in Europe but also at home. Only in 1950 his bust was placed in the "Gallery of Fame of great Americans."