Maclaurin, Colin (1698–1746)

Scottish mathematician who played a leading part in establishing the dominance of Isaac Newton's calculus in the UK. Maclaurin was the first to present the correct theory for distinguishing between the maximum and minimum values of a function.

Maclaurin was born in Argyllshire and studied at Glasgow. At the age of 19, he was appointed professor at the Marischal College of Aberdeen. On a visit to London in 1719 he first met Isaac Newton. Maclaurin left Aberdeen 1722 to become travelling tutor to the son of an English diplomat, returning to Scotland 1724 to become professor at Edinburgh. He won the admiration of Edinburgh society for his public lectures and demonstrations in experimental physics and astronomy. In 1745, during the Jacobite rebellion, he organized the defence of Edinburgh.

Maclaurin's Treatise of Fluxions (1742) was an attempt to prove Newton's doctrine of prime and ultimate ratios and to provide a geometrical framework to support Newton's fluxional calculus. So influential was the treatise that it contributed to the ascendancy of Newtonian mathematics which cut off Britain from developments in the rest of the world.