Josiah Willard Gibbs was an American scientist who made significant 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, 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. As a mathematician, he created modern vector calculus and described the Gibbs phenomenon in the theory of Fourier analysis.
Josiah Willard Gibbs
Willard Gibbs as a young man
Gibbs during his time as a tutor at Yale
Maxwell's sketch of the lines of constant temperature and pressure, made in preparation for his construction of a solid model based on Gibbs's definition of a thermodynamic surface for water (see Maxwell's thermodynamic surface)
Thermodynamics is a branch of physics that deals with heat, work, and temperature, and their relation to energy, entropy, and the physical properties of matter and radiation. The behavior of these quantities is governed by the four laws of thermodynamics, which convey a quantitative description using measurable macroscopic physical quantities, but may be explained in terms of microscopic constituents by statistical mechanics. Thermodynamics applies to a wide variety of topics in science and engineering, especially physical chemistry, biochemistry, chemical engineering and mechanical engineering, but also in other complex fields such as meteorology.
Annotated color version of the original 1824 Carnot heat engine showing the hot body (boiler), working body (system, steam), and cold body (water), the letters labeled according to the stopping points in Carnot cycle
Opening a bottle of sparkling wine (high-speed photography). The sudden drop of pressure causes a huge drop of temperature. The moisture in the air freezes, creating a smoke of tiny ice crystals.