In thermodynamics, Josiah Willard Gibbs (1839-1903) is considered as the preeminent thermodynamicist, through the publication of his 1876 On the Equilibrium of Heterogeneous Substances in which, along with German physicist Hermann von Helmhotlz, he is considered as the founder of chemical thermodynamics. [1] His grouped publications in thermodynamics are often referred to as "Gibbsian thermodynamics"; whereas, his 1876 Equilibrium treatise, specifically, has been famously called the Principia of thermodynamics.

Through his 1901 work on the statistical mechanic nature of thermodynamics he is considered as one of the central developers of the science of statistical thermodynamics. [2] In human thermodynamics, through his theories on the free energy of chemical substances and spontaneity, in relation to human chemical reaction prediction, Gibbs is considered one of central founders. [3]

Education
Gibbs entered Yale University at the age of 15 graduating, in 1858, at the age of 18. [7] He then entered the new Yale graduate school earning the first PhD in engineering in the United States.

Tributes
All-in-all, along with German physicist Rudolf Clausius, upon which Gibbs built his rigorous theory, Gibbs is considered, in the words of American Nobel Prize winning chemist John Fenn, "the greatest thermodynamicist of them all". [4] Austrian physicist Ludwig Boltzmann considered Gibbs "the greatist synthetic philosopher since Newton", Einsten judged him "one of the most important and creative minds in the field of science America has produced, and Henry Adams defined him as the "greatest of Americans, judged by his rank in science." [5] American political thermodynamicist Richard Hughes stated that Gibbs "is perhaps the greatest American scientist, ever." [6]

J.J. Thomson anecdote
Gibbs had a mailing list of over 300 of the world’s greatest scientists, to which, it has been said, he sent his publications to. Of the bunch, it was Scottish physicist James Maxwell who first took appreciation of Gibbs’ work and began to promote it. One of Gibbs’ biographers, J. G. Crowther, remarked that Maxwell became, in effect, Gibbs’ “intellectual publicity agent”. In the years after Maxwell’s premature death, in 1879, a humorous incident occurred between one of Maxwell’s successors at Cambridge English physicist J.J. Thomson, the discoverer of the electron, and a president of a newly formed American university on a faculty-recruiting mission. As the story went, according to Thomson: [7]

“He came to Cambridge, and asked me if I could tell him of anyone who could make a good Professor of Molecular Physics.” Thomson told him that one of the greatest molecular physicists in the world was Willard Gibbs, and he livened in America. The president responded that Thomson probably meant Wolcott Gibbs, a Harvard chemist. Thomson was empathetic that he did mean Willard Gibbs, and tried to convince his visitor that Gibbs was indeed a great scientist. “He sat thinking for a minute or two”, Thomson continues, “and then said, “I’d like you to give me another name. Willard Gibbs can’t be a man of much personal magnetism or I should have heard of him.’”

References
1. (a) Gibbs, J. Willard. (1873). "Graphical Methods in the Thermodynamics of Fluids", Transactions of the Connecticut Academy, I. pp. 309-342, April-May.
4. Fenn, John, B. (1982). Engines, Energy, and Entropy, (pg. v). San Francisco: W.H. Freeman and Co.
5. Staff writer. (1943). “Scientists’ Scientist”, Time, Monday, Jan 04.
6. (a) Richard D. Hughes – California State University, Sacramento.
(b) A Thermodynamic View of Politics (PDF) – by Richard D. Hughes.
7. Cropper, William H. (2004). Great Physicists: the Life and Times of Leading Physicists from Galileo to Hawking, (section II: Thermodynamics, pgs. 41-134; ch. 9: “The Greatest Simplicity: Willard Gibbs”, pgs 106-23). Oxford University Press.

Further reading
● Rukeyser, Muriel. (1942). Willard Gibbs - American Genius. Garden City, New York: Doubleday, Doran & Co., Inc.
● Wheeler, Lynde, P. (1951). Josiah Willard Gibbs - the History of a Great Mind. Woodbridge, Connecticut: Ox Bow Press.
● Caldi, D. G. and Mostow, George D. (1989). Proceedings of the Gibbs Symposium, May 15-17, (section: Gibbs in economics, by Paul Samuelson, pgs. 255-68). American Mathematical Society.
● Donnan, Frederick G., Haas, Arthur. (1936). A Commentary on the Scientific Writings of J. Willard Gibbs. Yale University Press.

External links
● Josiah Willard Gibbs Lectures (est. 1923) - American Mathematical Society.
● Gibbs Society of Biological Thermodynamics - University of Virginia.