Wikipedia:Today's featured article/February 11, 2016

Josiah Willard Gibbs (1839–1903) was an American scientist who made important 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 (a term that he coined), explaining the laws of thermodynamics as consequences of the statistical properties of large ensembles of particles. Gibbs also worked on the application of Maxwell's equations to problems in physical optics. He invented modern vector calculus, independently of Oliver Heaviside's similar work. In 1863, Yale awarded Gibbs the first American doctorate in engineering. He was a professor of mathematical physics at Yale from 1871 until his death. Working in relative isolation, he became the earliest theoretical scientist in the United States to earn an international reputation, and in 1901 he was awarded the Copley Medal of the Royal Society of London. He was praised by Albert Einstein as "the greatest mind in American history".