American scientist (born 1839)

Josiah Willard Gibbs

Josiah Willard Gibbs was an American mechanical engineer and scientist who made fundamental 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.

Born

1839

February 11

Died

1903

Era

1830s

Country

—

About

Josiah, in brief

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Life timeline

Key dates

1839 Born
1903 Died

Also on February 11

What else happened on this day, through history

-660 Traditional date for the foundation of Japan by Emperor Jimmu.
55 The death under mysterious circumstances of Tiberius Claudius Caesar Britannicus, heir to the Roman Empire, on the eve of his coming of age clears the way for Nero to become Emperor.
951 Guo Wei, a court official, leads a military coup and declares himself emperor of the new Later Zhou.
1144 Robert of Chester completes his translation from Arabic to Latin of the Liber de compositione alchemiae, marking the birth of Western alchemy.

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The world in 1903

When Josiah departed

april 19 The Kishinev pogrom in Kishinev (Bessarabia) begins, forcing tens of thousands of Jews to later seek refuge in Palestine and the Western world.
april 26 Atlético Madrid Association football club is founded.
april 29 A landslide kills 70 people in Frank, in the District of Alberta, Canada.
august 18 German engineer Karl Jatho allegedly flies his self-made, motored gliding airplane four months before the first flight of the Wright brothers.

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Same-day contemporaries

Also born on February 11

Thomas Edison 1847–1931 American engineer and businessman, developed the light bulb and phonograph (died 1931) Ellen Broe 1900– Danish nurse, pioneer in nursing education (died 1994) Eva Gabor 1919–1995 Hungarian-American actress (died 1995) Gene Vincent 1935–1971 American singer and guitarist (died 1971) Henry Fox Talbot 1800–1877 English photographer and politician, invented the calotype (died 1877) Ivan Ančić 1624–1685 Croatian Franciscan and religious writer (died 1685) Jean Baptiste Charbonneau 1805– Native American-French Canadian explorer (died 1866) Josh Jacobs 1998– American football player Khalid 1998– American singer and songwriter

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More to explore

Josiah's birthday February 11 Josiah's zodiac Aquarius When Josiah departed 1903