J. Willard Gibbs.

Josiah Willard Gibbs was the only son among five children born to Mary Anna Van Cleve and Josiah Willard Gibbs, Sr. The senior Gibbs was a noted philologist who served as a professor of sacred literature at Yale Divinity School from 1826 until his death in 1861. The younger Gibbs was a withdrawn and intellectually intense youth of delicate health. He attended Yale College, where he received prizes in Latin, Greek, and mathematics. After graduating in 1858, he enrolled in Yale's newly formed graduate school of engineering, earning a Ph.D. in 1863. He spent the next three years tutoring in Latin and natural philosophy at Yale. When he returned to New Haven in June, 1869, having assimilated the intellectual techniques of his teachers, Gibbs was more interested in theory and broad applications. American science of the time was preoccupied with practical devices. In 1871, two years before publishing his first paper, Gibbs was appointed professor of mathematical physics at Yale, a position that he occupied until his death. During the first nine years of his tenure at Yale, Gibbs served without salary, supporting himself by his inheritance from his father. It was during these unsalaried years that he wrote the papers on thermodynamics that are now recognized as his greatest scientific contribution. INSET: J. Willard Gibbs.