Before revision: Surface stress was first defined by Josiah Willard Gibbs (1839–1903) as the amount of the reversible work per unit area needed to elastically stretch a pre-existing surface.
After revision: Comparison of surface energy, creating new surface on the left, and surface stress due to elastic deformationSurface stress was first defined by Josiah Willard Gibbs (1839–1903) as the amount of the reversible work per unit area needed to elastically stretch a pre-existing surface.