// minds behind maths

Josiah Willard Gibbs

1839–1903 · Physical chemistry, thermodynamics

Josiah Willard Gibbs was an American physicist, chemist, and mathematician who laid the foundations of chemical thermodynamics. From 1873 he developed the concept now called Gibbs free energy, ΔG = ΔH − TΔS, which combines a reaction's heat change and entropy change to predict whether it will happen spontaneously: a negative ΔG means the process can proceed on its own. This single criterion governs chemical reactions, phase changes, and the link between energy and electrochemical cell voltage.

Source: Wikipedia — Gibbs free energy

Formulas that trace back to Josiah Willard Gibbs