X-Nico

unusual facts about J. Willard Gibbs



Entropy in thermodynamics and information theory

There are close parallels between the mathematical expressions for the thermodynamic entropy, usually denoted by S, of a physical system in the statistical thermodynamics established by Ludwig Boltzmann and J. Willard Gibbs in the 1870s, and the information-theoretic entropy, usually expressed as H, of Claude Shannon and Ralph Hartley developed in the 1940s.

Hendrik Willem Bakhuis Roozeboom

J. D. van der Waals introduced him to the theoretical works of J. Willard Gibbs on the phase rule which so far had little experimental verification in chemistry, prompting him to start a lifelong research programme on phase equilibria.

Vector calculus

Vector calculus was developed from quaternion analysis by J. Willard Gibbs and Oliver Heaviside near the end of the 19th century, and most of the notation and terminology was established by Gibbs and Edwin Bidwell Wilson in their 1901 book, Vector Analysis.


see also