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PAPERS I AND II AS ILLUSTRATED BY GIBBS' 

 LECTURES ON THERMODYNAMICS 



[Gibbs, I, pp. 1-54] 



EDWIN B. WILSON 



I. Introduction 



As Papers I (pp. 1-32) and II (pp. 33-54) are properly charac- 

 terised by H. A. Bumstead in his introductory biography 

 (Gibbs, I, pp. xiv-xvi) as of importance not so much for any 

 place they made for themselves in the literature as for the prep- 

 aration and viewpoint they afforded the author as groundwork 

 for his great memoir on the Equilibrium of Heterogeneous 

 Substances, it will perhaps be most appropriate to illustrate 

 them by an outline of Gibbs' course on thermodynamics as he 

 gave it towards the end of his life. From such a sketch one may 

 possibly infer what Gibbs himself considered important in the 

 papers and what illustrations he himself thought it worth while 

 to lay before his auditors. In this outline the notes of Mr. L. I. 

 Hewes (now of the U. S. Bureau of Public Roads, San Francisco) 

 who took the course in the academic year 1899-1900 will be 

 followed.* 



II. Outline of Gibbs' Lectures on Thermodynamics 



Lecture I {October 3, 1899). The measurements in our subject 

 fall into two sets, thermometry and calorimetry. Ordinary 

 units of heat and scales of temperature. Constant pressure and 

 constant volume thermometers. Gas thermometers with con- 



* I took the course two years later in 1901-1902; my notes were lost, 

 but unless my recollection is mistaken the course did not differ except 

 by the inclusion, toward the end, of a few lectures on statistical mechanics 

 and a more rapid advance in the earlier parts (see Note on p. 50). 



