PHYSICIST

Josiah Willard Gibbs

1839 - 1903

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Josiah Willard Gibbs (; February 11, 1839 – April 28, 1903) was an American mechanical engineer and scientist who made fundamental theoretical contributions to physics, chemistry, and mathematics. His work on the applications of thermodynamics was instrumental in transforming physical chemistry into a rigorous deductive science. Together with James Clerk Maxwell and Ludwig Boltzmann, he created statistical mechanics (a term that he coined), explaining the laws of thermodynamics as consequences of the statistical properties of ensembles of the possible states of a physical system composed of many particles. Gibbs also worked on the application of Maxwell's equations to problems in physical optics. Read more on Wikipedia

His biography is available in different languages on Wikipedia. Josiah Willard Gibbs is the 127th most popular physicist (up from 185th in 2019), the 405th most popular biography from United States (up from 671st in 2019) and the 19th most popular American Physicist.

Josiah Willard Gibbs is most famous for his work in thermodynamics. He was the first to create a systematic treatment of thermodynamics.

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Among PHYSICISTS

Among physicists, Josiah Willard Gibbs ranks 127 out of 851. Before him are Albert Fert, Owen Chamberlain, Anders Jonas Ångström, Joseph von Fraunhofer, Rosalyn Sussman Yalow, and Alfred Kastler. After him are William Rowan Hamilton, Arthur Compton, Simon van der Meer, James Rainwater, Carl Zeiss, and Hans Bethe.

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Contemporaries

Among people born in 1839, Josiah Willard Gibbs ranks 8. Before him are John D. Rockefeller, Sully Prudhomme, Modest Mussorgsky, Jamsetji Tata, Alfred Sisley, and Charles Sanders Peirce. After him are Carol I of Romania, George Armstrong Custer, Karl Theodor, Duke in Bavaria, Nikolay Przhevalsky, Josephine Cochrane, and Emil Škoda. Among people deceased in 1903, Josiah Willard Gibbs ranks 10. Before him are Herbert Spencer, Camille Pissarro, Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury, James Abbott McNeill Whistler, Alois Hitler, and Sir George Stokes, 1st Baronet. After him are Alexander I of Serbia, Hugo Wolf, Otto Weininger, Gemma Galgani, Gotse Delchev, and George Gissing.

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In United States

Among people born in United States, Josiah Willard Gibbs ranks 405 out of 20,380. Before him are Rocky Marciano (1923), John Ford (1894), Lee Van Cleef (1925), Audie Murphy (1925), Jamie Foxx (1967), and Rosalyn Sussman Yalow (1921). After him are James Brown (1933), Geraldine Chaplin (1944), George Smith (1941), Sarah Palin (1964), Iggy Pop (1947), and William Henry Harrison (1773).

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Among PHYSICISTS In United States

Among physicists born in United States, Josiah Willard Gibbs ranks 19. Before him are Donald A. Glaser (1926), Clinton Davisson (1881), Ernest Lawrence (1901), Willis Lamb (1913), Owen Chamberlain (1920), and Rosalyn Sussman Yalow (1921). After him are Arthur Compton (1892), James Rainwater (1917), Robert Coleman Richardson (1937), Clifford Shull (1915), John Bardeen (1908), and Joseph Henry (1797).

American born Physicists

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