MATHEMATICIAN

John Playfair

1748 - 1819

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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. Read more on Wikipedia

His biography is available in different languages on Wikipedia. John Playfair is the 641st most popular mathematician (down from 497th in 2019), the 3,089th most popular biography from United Kingdom (down from 2,310th in 2019) and the 67th most popular British Mathematician.

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Among MATHEMATICIANS

Among mathematicians, John Playfair ranks 641 out of 1,004. Before him are Dinostratus, Polyaenus of Lampsacus, François d'Aguilon, Cahit Arf, Luigi Bianchi, and Ludwig Bieberbach. After him are Beppo Levi, Heinz Hopf, Federico Commandino, Lev Schnirelmann, Edward Routh, and Harold Scott MacDonald Coxeter.

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Contemporaries

Among people born in 1748, John Playfair ranks 25. Before him are Petar I Petrović-Njegoš, Dominique, comte de Cassini, Félix Vicq-d'Azyr, Asaf-ud-Daula, William Cavendish, 5th Duke of Devonshire, and Frederick V, Landgrave of Hesse-Homburg. After him are Francesco Mario Pagano, Martha Jefferson, Charles Blagden, Joseph Bramah, Christian Ehrenfried Weigel, and Anne Seymour Damer. Among people deceased in 1819, John Playfair ranks 25. Before him are Alexander Andreyevich Baranov, Bodawpaya, Johan David Åkerblad, Alexander Tormasov, Valentin Vodnik, and Johann Peter Beaulieu. After him are Josepha Weber, Princess Louise of Orange-Nassau, Hannah Van Buren, Friedrich Leopold zu Stolberg-Stolberg, Oliver Hazard Perry, and John Jeffries.

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In United Kingdom

Among people born in United Kingdom, John Playfair ranks 3,090 out of 8,785. Before him are Quentin Blake (1932), John Wilkes (1725), Harrison Birtwistle (1934), Jim Ratcliffe (1952), Paul Nurse (1949), and Imogen Heap (1977). After him are Lady Sarah Chatto (1964), Christopher O'Neill (1974), Matthew Locke (1621), Laura Mulvey (1941), Janet Baker (1933), and Robin Milner (1934).

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Among MATHEMATICIANS In United Kingdom

Among mathematicians born in United Kingdom, John Playfair ranks 67. Before him are Joseph Raphson (1648), Thomas Wright (1711), Henry Dudeney (1857), Sydney Chapman (1888), James Ivory (1765), and Douglas Hartree (1897). After him are Harold Scott MacDonald Coxeter (1907), William Burnside (1852), Robert Simson (1687), John Hadley (1682), Egon Pearson (1895), and Paul Bernays (1888).

British born Mathematicians

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