The story of Josiah Gibbs absolutely fascinates me.
See Wikepedia for the complete story.
Gibbs is famous for "Gibbs energy G." He was the first to receive an (from Yale in 1863) engineering PhD in America. Obviously, he was at Yale during the Civil war but he did not volunteer or was conscripted in the war due to his illnesses and poor eyesight. He had astigmatism for which the optometrists back then didn't know how to solve, so he had to grind his own lenses.
He spent three years in Europe after college and then returned to Yale where he spent the rest of his life. He pretty much spent his entire life in the same house. He had sufficient means through inheritance from his father and taught free at Yale. Later, Johns Hopkins offered a professorship to him with a salary of $3000 per year. Yale came to know about this and offered to increase his salary from zero to $2000 per year. Gibbs said fine and stayed at Yale!
What amazes me is the versatility of scientists like Gibbs back then. Gibbs got his PhD in engineering, started teaching French to engineering students at Yale, did phenomenal theoretical work on thermodynamics, invented vector calculus, did some outstanding work on physical optics. He supervised the PhD work of a student in economics "Mathematical Investigations in the Theory of Value and Prices",. This was the first Yale PhD in economics.
See Wikepedia for the complete story.
Gibbs is famous for "Gibbs energy G." He was the first to receive an (from Yale in 1863) engineering PhD in America. Obviously, he was at Yale during the Civil war but he did not volunteer or was conscripted in the war due to his illnesses and poor eyesight. He had astigmatism for which the optometrists back then didn't know how to solve, so he had to grind his own lenses.
He spent three years in Europe after college and then returned to Yale where he spent the rest of his life. He pretty much spent his entire life in the same house. He had sufficient means through inheritance from his father and taught free at Yale. Later, Johns Hopkins offered a professorship to him with a salary of $3000 per year. Yale came to know about this and offered to increase his salary from zero to $2000 per year. Gibbs said fine and stayed at Yale!
What amazes me is the versatility of scientists like Gibbs back then. Gibbs got his PhD in engineering, started teaching French to engineering students at Yale, did phenomenal theoretical work on thermodynamics, invented vector calculus, did some outstanding work on physical optics. He supervised the PhD work of a student in economics "Mathematical Investigations in the Theory of Value and Prices",. This was the first Yale PhD in economics.
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