Image by Didgeman on Pixabay · Pixabay License
John Playfair
Sign in to saveScottish scientist and mathematician
Person · Open Library
- Born
- 1748
- Died
- 1819
- Works
- 35
Top works
- Elements of plane geometry according to Euclid
- New lights!!
- Dissertation second
- Elements of geometry
- The element of geometry
via Open Library + Wikidata
Recent publications · Crossref
5 total works indexed
- Generalized Gradient Approximation Made Simple
· 1996 · cited 200,169x
- Highly accurate protein structure prediction with AlphaFold
· 2021 · cited 41,509x
- Gene Ontology: tool for the unification of biology
· 2000 · cited 36,302x
- Matplotlib: A 2D Graphics Environment
· 2007 · cited 34,187x
- The MOS 36-ltem Short-Form Health Survey (SF-36)
· 1992 · cited 28,819x
via Crossref · CC0
Quotes
- “The observations on which the astronomy of India is founded, were made more than three thousand years before the Christian era. (…) Two other elements of this astronomy, the equation of the sun’s centre and the obliquity of the ecliptic (…) seem to point to a period still more remote, and to fix the origin of this astronomy 1000 or 1200 years earlier, that is, 4300 years before the Christian era.”
- “That observations made in India, when all Europe was barbarous or uninhabited, and investigations into the most subtle effects of gravitation made in Europe, near five thousand years afterwards, should thus come in mutual support of one another, is perhaps the most striking example of the progress and vicissitudes of science, which the history of mankind has yet exhibited. (179 0:160)”
via Wikiquote · CC BY-SA
Key facts
- Born
- ( 1748-03-10 ) 10 March 1748 , Benvie, Forfarshire , Scotland
- Died
- 20 July 1819 (1819-07-20) (aged 71), Burntisland, Fife , Scotland
- Resting place
- Old Calton Burial Ground
- Alma mater
- University of St Andrews University of Edinburgh
- Known for
- Playfair's axiom Playfair's law Playfair (lunar crater) Playfair (Martian crater) playfairite
- Fields
- Mathematics , natural philosophy , geology
- Institutions
- University of Edinburgh
via Wikipedia infobox
Wikidata facts
- Image
- John Playfair. Stipple engraving by J. Thomson, 1819. Wellcome V0004707.jpg
Show 3 more facts
- Commons category
- John Playfair
- date of birth
- 1748-03-10
- date of death
- 1819-07-20
via Wikidata · CC0
~7 min read
Article
John Playfair FRSE, FRS (10 March 1748 – 20 July 1819) was a Church of Scotland minister, remembered as a scientist and mathematician, and a professor of natural philosophy at the University of Edinburgh. He is best known for his book Illustrations of the Huttonian Theory of the Earth (1802), which summarised the work of James Hutton. It was through this book that Hutton's principle of uniformitarianism, later taken up by Charles Lyell, first reached a wide audience. Playfair's textbook Elements of Geometry made a brief expression of Euclid's parallel postulate known now as Playfair's axiom.
In 1783 he was a co-founder of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. He served as General Secretary to the society 1798–1819.