The Scientific Papers of J. Willard Gibbs, Vol. 2

Josiah W Gibbs (1839 - 1903) was an American theoretical physicist, chemist, and mathematician. He devised much of the theoretical foundation for chemical thermodynamics as well as physical chemistry. As a mathematician, he invented vector analysis (independently of Oliver Heaviside). Yale University awarded Gibbs the first American Ph.D. in engineering in 1863, and he spent his entire career at Yale. In 1901, Gibbs was awarded the highest possible honor granted by the international scientific community of his day, granted to only one scientist each year: the Copley Medal of the Royal Society of London, for his greatest contribution of being "the first to apply the second law of thermodynamics to the exhaustive discussion of the relation between chemical, electrical, and thermal energy and capacity for external work." (Excerpt from Wikipedia)