Colin Maclaurin

1698-1746

Scottish Mathematician and Physicist

First mathematician to provide systematic proof of Sir Isaac Newton's (1642-1727) theorems, Colin Maclaurin was also noted for his advances in geometry and applied physics. On the one hand, Maclaurin belonged solidly to the Age of Reason, with talents as diverse as those of more famous figures from the period, such as Thomas Jefferson; on the other hand, he remained a man of faith to the end of his life.

Maclaurin, who was born in Kilmodan, Scotland, in 1698, lost both of his parents early in life. His father, a highly learned minister named John Maclaurin, died when the boy was just six years old, and the mother followed by three years. Maclaurin was left in the care of his uncle Daniel.

As a college student, initially Maclaurin studied divinity at the University of Glasgow, but a professor encouraged his interest in mathematics. In 1715, Maclaurin defended his thesis, "On the Power of Gravity," which contained his first discussions of Newtonian principles. After earning his master of arts degree, in 1716 he was appointed professor of mathematics at Marischal College in Aberdeen.

In 1719, Maclaurin had the opportunity to meet his hero Newton, and in the following year he published Geometrica Organica, sive descriptio linearum curvarum universalis, a discussion of higher planes and conics that proved a number of Newton's theories. He took a job as tutor to the son of a British diplomat, Lord Polwarth, in 1722, and traveled to France, where he produced his On the Percussion of Bodies. The latter won him a prize from the French Académie Royale des Sciences in 1724.

Polwarth's son died shortly thereafter, and Maclaurin tried to return to his old position at Marischal, only to discover that it had been filled. Instead he took a chair in mathematics at the University of Edinburgh in 1725. Eight years later, at the age of 35, Maclaurin married Anne Stewart, daughter of Scotland's solicitor general, with whom he had seven children.

With a 1740 essay called "On the Tides," in which he described the tides in Newtonian terms as an ellipsoid revolving around an inner point, Maclaurin entered a competition sponsored by the Académie Royale des Sciences. He shared the Académie's prize with two distinguished contemporaries, Leonhard Euler (1707-1783) and Daniel Bernoulli (1700-1782), and as a result attracted international attention.

In 1742, Maclaurin published his Treatise of Fluxions, which—like another work published that same year by Thomas Bayes (1702?-1761)—was a response to George Berkeley's The Analyst, A Letter Addressed to an Infidel Mathematician (1734). With his defense of Newton, Maclaurin persuaded British scientists to adopt their distinguished compatriot's geometrical methods. This proved a rather dubious success in the long run, because as a result the British remained in the dark regarding advances in analytical calculus taking place on the continent during the late 1700s.

Political events soon intervened in Maclaurin's life, as in 1745 a revolt broke out among the Jacobites, a faction who claimed that the Catholic line descended from James II, second son of Charles I, were the rightful heirs to the British throne rather than the descendants of James's elder brother Charles II. Defending the city of Edinburgh against a Jacobite attack, Maclaurin succumbed to fatigue, and died a year later at the age of 48. He was still writing practically on his deathbed, and his last writings give firm indication of his belief in life after death.

JUDSON KNIGHT