In chemical thermodynamics, Gilbert Newton Lewis (1875-1946)
(IQ:13|195) (CR:4|430) was an American physical chemist and chemical thermodynamicist notable for the publication of his 1923 textbook Thermodynamics and the Free Energy of Chemical Substances, written via dictation to American physical chemist Merle Randall, that resulted to be the most referenced thermodynamics textbook (by other thermodynamics textbooks) of the 20th century, known as the the so-called "thermodynamic bible", that resulted, in the 1956 words of American chemistry historian Henry Leicester, to “replace the term ‘affinity’ by the term ‘free energy’ [throughout] the English-speaking world.”

Lewis is also noted for the development of the Lewis dot structure (electron pair) model (1902) of the covalent bond, e.g. H:H for the hydrogen molecule H2, for his Anatomy of Science conjectures on a speculative future "wonderful science" (see: hmolscience), somewhere between mechanics and psychology, that explains the behavior of both the electron and a person (1925), for coining the term photon as the particle of light (1926), for his interjection into the Szilard demon argument (1930), and in general for the formation of what has come to be known as the "Lewis school", centered around the University of California, Berkeley, which, as summarized by South African physical chemist Adriaan de Lange, has produced “more Nobel Prize winners in chemistry than any Nobel Prize winner in any category”, a school of influence that is still being felt.

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Lewis spent his youth in Lincoln, Neb. Initially educated at home by his parents, at age 13 he entered the preparatory school of the University of Nebraska in Lincoln. He continued at the university through his sophomore year before transferring to Harvard University in 1893, from which he received a bachelor’s degree in chemistry in 1896. After a year of teaching at Phillips Academy in Andover, Mass., he returned to Harvard to complete a master’s degree in 1898, followed by a doctorate the next year under the supervision of Theodore Richards for a dissertation on the electrochemistry of zinc and cadmium amalgams.