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Playfair, John 1748-1819
Scottish mathematician, physicist and geologist
Born in Benvie, near Dundee, he studied at St Andrews University and in 1785 became joint Professor of Mathematics at Edinburgh, where he produced a successful edition of Euclid's Elements, but in 1805 he exchanged his appointment for the chair of natural philosophy. He was a strenuous supporter of James Hutton's uniformitarian theory in geology and travelled widely to make geological observations. His Illustrations of the Huttonian Theory (1802) was a landmark in British geological writing. He published his contributions to mathematics in Elements of Geometry (1795).
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The Chambers Dictionary (13th edition)
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The Chambers Thesaurus
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Chambers Biographical Dictionary
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Thoroughly revised and updated for its 9th edition.
Consult Chambers 21st Century Dictionary, The Chambers Thesaurus (1996) or Chambers Biographical Dictionary (1997 edition with amendments). Enter your search and choose your title from the drop-down menu.
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