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 American physicist who formulated a
concept of thermodynamic equilibrium of a system in terms of energy
 and entropy.
His work,
however, was published in a relatively obscure journal. Gibbs'
contributions were therefore unknown among prominent European
chemists until they were translated into German by Ostwald
in 1892 and into French by le
Châtelier in 1899. Gibbs reviewed the relationship between the
laws of thermodynamics
and
statistical theory of molecular motions in Elementary Principles
in Statistical Mechanics (1902). He also did extensive work on
chemical equilibrium, and equilibria between phases. The
overshooting of the original function by partial sums of Fourier
series  at
points of discontinuity is known as the Gibbs
phenomenon.
Additional biographies: MacTutor
(St. Andrews)
References
Gibbs, J. W. Elementary
Principles of Statistical Mechanics. 1981.
Gibbs, J. W. and Wilson, E. B. Vector Analysis: A
Text-Book for the use of Students of Mathematics and Physics,
Founded Upon the Lectures of J. Willard Gibbs. New York:
Dover, 1960.
Author: Eric W. Weisstein
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