John Playfair

(Text modified from [http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/John_Playfair Britannica 1911)

John Playfair (1748-1819), mathematician and physicist, was born on the 10th of March 1748 at Benvie, Forfarshire, in Scotland where his father was parish minister. He was educated at home until he was fourteen, when he entered the University of St Andrews. In 1766, when only eighteen, he applied for the chair of mathematics in Marischal College, Aberdeen, but was unsuccessful. Six years later he applied for the chair of natural philosophy in St Andrews, but again without success, and in 1773 he accepted the living of the united parishes of Liff and Benvie, vacant by the death of his father. He continued, however, to carry on his mathematical and physical studies, and in 1782 he resigned to become the tutor of Ferguson of Raith. This enabled him to be frequently in Edinburgh, and to cultivate the literary and scientific society for which it was then famous; and through Maskelyne, whose acquaintance he had first made in the course of the Schiehallion experiments in 1774, he gained access to the scientific circles of London. In 1785, when Dugald Stewart succeeded Ferguson in the Edinburgh chair of moral philosophy, Playfair succeeded Dugald Stewart in the chair of mathematics. Playfair however is remembered most not for his contributions to mathematics, but for the formidable role that he played in bringing the work of his friend, the geologist James Hutton, to prominence.

In 1802, Playfair published Illustrations of the Huttonian Theory of the Earth. To its publication the influence exerted by Hutton on the progress of geological knowledge is largely due. In 1805 he exchanged the chair of mathematics for that of natural philosophy in succession to Dr John Robison, whom also he succeeded as general secretary to the Royal Society of Edinburgh. He took a prominent part, on the Liberal side, in the ecclesiastical controversy which arose in connexion with Leslie's appointment to the post he had vacated, and published a satirical Letter (1806). He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1807. He died in Edinburgh on 20th July 1819.

A collected edition of Playfair's works, with a memoir by James G. Playfair, appeared at Edinburgh in 4 volumes. His writings include a number of essays contributed to the Edinburgh Review from 1804 onwards, various papers in the Phil. Trans. (including his earliest publication, "On the Arithmetic of Impossible Quantities," 1779, and an "Account of the Lithological Survey of Schehallion," 1811) and in the Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh ("On the Causes which affect the Accuracy of Barometrical Measurements," &c.), also the articles "Aepinus" and "Physical Astronomy," and a "Dissertation on the Progress of Mathematical and Physical Science since the Revival of Learning in Europe," in the Encyclopaedia Britannica (Supplement to fourth, fifth and sixth editions). His Elements of Geometry first appeared in 1795 and have passed through many editions; his Outlines of Natural Philosophy (2 vols., 1812-1816) consist of the propositions and formulae which were the basis of his class lectures. Playfair's contributions to pure mathematics were not considerable, his paper "On the Arithmetic of Impossible Quantities," that "On the Causes which affect the Accuracy of Barometrical Measurements," and his Elements of Geometry, all already referred to, being the most important. His lives of Matthew Stewart, Hutton, Robison, many of his reviews, and above all his "Dissertation" are of the utmost value.