Etymology

Named after Josiah Willard Gibbs, who introduced it in 1902.

Proper noun

the Gibbs algorithmCategory:English lemmas#GIBBSALGORITHMCategory:English proper nouns#GIBBSALGORITHMCategory:English uncountable nouns#GIBBSALGORITHMCategory:English multiword terms#GIBBSALGORITHMCategory:English entries with incorrect language header#GIBBSALGORITHMCategory:Pages with entries#GIBBS%20ALGORITHMCategory:Pages with 1 entry#GIBBS%20ALGORITHM

1. (statistical mechanicsCategory:en:Statistical mechanics#GIBBSALGORITHM) A criterion for choosing a probability distribution for the statistical ensemble of microstates of a thermodynamic system by minimizing the average log probability ${\displaystyle \langle \ln p_{i}\rangle =\sum _{i}p_{i}\ln p_{i}\,}$, subject to the probability distribution p_i satisfying a set of constraints (usually expectation values) corresponding to the known macroscopic quantities.