Josiah Willard Gibbs citations

Josiah Willard Gibbs est un physico-chimiste américain.

Son travail sur l'application à la chimie de la thermodynamique joue un grand rôle dans la transformation de la chimie physique en science raisonnée et rigoureuse. Avec Maxwell et Boltzmann, il crée la mécanique statistique qui explique les lois de la thermodynamique à l'aide des propriétés statistiques des grands ensembles des particules. En mathématiques, il est aussi un des fondateurs de l'analyse vectorielle. Wikipedia  

✵ 11. février 1839 – 28. avril 1903
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Josiah Willard Gibbs: 11   citations 0   J'aime

Josiah Willard Gibbs: Citations en anglais

“A mathematician may say anything he pleases, but a physicist must be at least partially sane.”

Quoted in R. B. Lindsay, "On the Relation of Mathematics and Physics," Scientific Monthly 59, 456 (Dec. 1944)
Attributed

“One of the principal objects of theoretical research is to find the point of view from which the subject appears in the greatest simplicity.”

From Gibbs's letter accepting the Rumford Medal (1881). Quoted in A. L. Mackay, Dictionary of Scientific Quotations (London, 1994).

“Mathematics is a language.”

At a Yale faculty meeting, during a discussion of language requirements in the undergraduate curriculum. Quoted in Muriel Rukeyser, Willard Gibbs (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Doran & Co., 1942), p. 280.
Attributed

“If I have had any success in mathematical physics, it is, I think, because I have been able to dodge mathematical difficulties.”

Quoted by C. S. Hastings in "Biographical Memoir of Josiah Willard Gibbs 1839-1903," National Academy of Sciences Biographical Memoirs, vol. VI (Washington, D.C.: National Academy of Sciences, 1909), p. 390. Complete memoir http://books.nap.edu/html/biomems/jgibbs.pdf
Attributed

“His true monument lies not on the shelves of libraries, but in the thoughts of men, and in the history of more than one science.”

From Gibbs's obituary for Rudolf Clausius (1889). See The Collected Works of J. Willard Gibbs, vol. 2 (New York: Longmans, Green and Co., 1928), p. 267. Complete volume http://www.archive.org/details/collectedworksj00longgoog

“The whole is simpler than its parts.”

Quoted by Irving Fisher in "The Applications of Mathematics to the Social Sciences," Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society 36, 225-243 (1930). Full article http://projecteuclid.org/euclid.bams/1183493954
Attributed

“Anyone having these desires will make these researches.”

About his own scientific work. Quoted in Muriel Rukeyser, Willard Gibbs (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Doran & Co., 1942), p. 431.
Attributed

“I wish to know systems.”

Quoted in Muriel Rukeyser, Willard Gibbs (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Doran & Co., 1942), p. 4.
Attributed

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