Indian Science and Technology in the Eighteenth Century: Some Contemporary European Accounts c27.7
Indian Science and Technology in the Eighteenth Century: Some Contemporary European Accounts c27.7
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c27.7
PLAYFAIR, John (1748-1819), mathematician and geologist, author of Chapter II, was born near Dundee (Scotland), on 10th March 1748. He then completed his theological course, and was licenced by the presbytery as a minister in 1770. He was elected moderator of Synod, at Liff in 1774. In 1785 he became joint professor of mathematics in the university of Edinburgh, and in 1805 exchanged his mathematical chair for the professorship of natural philosophy in the same university. Playfair was one of the original members of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, of which he subsequently became general secretary and held this post till his death. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1807.