Colin Maclaurin

Colin Maclaurin ( February 1698 * in Kilmodan, Argyllshire, Scotland, † June 14, 1746 in Edinburgh ) was a British mathematician, surveyor and geophysicist from Scotland.

Life and work

Colin Maclaurin was the son of the pastor in the village Kilmoden the river Ruel. His father died when he was six weeks old and the mother of 1707. Maclaurin went back in Dumbarton to school and moved to the death of his mother to his uncle in Kilfinnan. From 1709 he studied at the University of Glasgow, including the elements of Euclid, and in 1712 he received his Master of Arts degree with a thesis on Newton's theory of gravitation. Then he began another study theology, but this broke and studied mathematics for themselves, while he lived again with his uncle. In 1717 he was 19 years old professor in Aberdeen, after he had passed an examination as Best. In 1719 he visited London, where he met Newton and was inducted into the Royal Society. Then he accompanied two years the son of Lord POLHAM on his grand tour of Europe, where he was awarded the Grand Prize of the Academie des Sciences in Paris. As he had not, however, asked the university for permission, he got upon his return to Aberdeen problems, although he was reinstated as a professor. From 1726, he was with a recommendation of Professor Newton in Edinburgh, where he remained for the rest of his career. In 1740 he again received the prize of the Academie des Sciences ( jointly with Euler and Daniel Bernoulli ) with a thesis on tides. In 1745 he was actively involved in the defense of Edinburgh against the Jacobites. After the capture of the city he fled to York ( at the invitation of the Archbishop ) and returned in November back to Edinburgh. The hardships the middle of winter made ​​him ill, and he died the following year.

Maclaurin wrote in 1742 his most important work A Treatise of fluxions, one of the first systematic representations of Newton's calculus, written in response to the criticism of George Berkeley to the foundations of analysis. He was the inventor of the Trisektrix and the Maclaurin series was named after him ( in his Treatise on fluxions ), but represents only a special case of the Taylor series ( Maclaurin also refers to Taylor). He was also involved in the development of the Euler - Maclaurin formula ( which occurred in his Treatise ) and put the Maclaurin inequality to. Maclaurin also dealt with insurance mathematics and, for example, with the geometry of honeycombs.

Maclaurin made ​​important contributions to theoretical geodesy and geophysics. He examined the theoretical figure of the earth by calculations in a homogeneous ellipsoid, which was later named after him Maclaurin ellipsoid. He also calculated the attraction of two ellipsoids.

He was married in 1733 to Anne Stewart, with whom he had seven children, of whom only five survived him.

Together with his friend James Douglas Maclaurin was instrumental role in the founding of the Society for Improving Arts and Sciences, the forerunner of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, whose founding president in 1737 Douglas was.

Writings

• Geometria Organica. In 1720.
• De Linearum Geometricarum proprietatibus. In 1720.
• Treatise on Fluxions. 2 volumes, T. W. & T. Ruddimans, Edinburgh 1742.
• Treatise on Algebra. In 1748.
• Account of Newton 's Discoveries. - At the time of his death in 1750 or 1748 released unfinished ( about the source location is disagreement )