Josiah Willard Gibbs was the first person to receive a doctorate in engineering from Yale University. He joined the faculty at Yale and served for 37 years. He published his first paper in the field of thermodynamics in 1873 and went on to become the premier scholar in the field. He made important made important theoretical contributions to physics, chemistry, and mathematics. His work on the applications of thermodynamics was especially important as it enabled physical chemistry to become firmly based upon mathematics.
Gibbs created the field of statistical mechanics which explain the thermodynamic behavior of large systems. He developed the concept of free energy, which is now called Gibbs Free Energy (ΔGº = ΔHº – TΔSº), which relates the energy of a system enthalpy, temperature and entropy.
Gibbs was awarded the Rumford Prize in 1880 from the American Academy of Arts and Sciences as the founder of the the field of chemical thermodynamics. In 1901, Gibbs received the highest honor then available to a scientist, the Copley Medal of the Royal Society of London, "for his contributions to mathematical physics".
In the world of science important discoveries are often named after their discoverer. The following concepts were developed by Gibbs:
Chemical thermodynamics
Chemical potential
Statistical mechanics
Statistical ensemble
Gibbs entropy
Phase space
Physical optics
Gibbs free energy
Phase rule
Gibbs paradox
Vector calculus
Cross product
Gibbs phenomenon
Gibbs–Helmholtz equation
Gibbs–Duhem equation
Gibbs algorithm
Gibbs measure
Gibbs state
Gibbs–Thomson effect
Gibbs isotherm
Gibbs–Donnan effect
Gibbs–Marangoni effect
Gibbs lemma
Gibbs' inequality
Gibbs distribution