page_title: John Playfair
hierarchical_section_title: John Playfair
caption_attribution_description: John Playfair, by Sir Henry Raeburn (died 1823). See source website for additional information. This set of images was gathered by User:Dcoetzee from the National Portrait Gallery, London website using a special tool. All images in this batch have been confirmed as author died before 1939 according to the official death date listed by the NPG.
context_page_description: John Playfair FRSE, FRS was a Scottish scientist and mathematician, and a professor of natural philosophy at the University of Edinburgh.
  He is perhaps best known for his book Illustrations of the Huttonian Theory of the Earth, which summarised the work of James Hutton. It was through this book that Hutton's principle of uniformitarianism first reached a wide audience. The idea was later taken up by Charles Lyell and Charles Darwin. Playfair is also remembered for his proposal of an alternative to Euclid's parallel postulate.
context_section_description: John Playfair FRSE, FRS (10 March 1748 – 20 July 1819) was a Scottish scientist and mathematician, and a professor of natural philosophy at the University of Edinburgh. 
  He is perhaps best known for his book Illustrations of the Huttonian Theory of the Earth (1802), which summarised the work of James Hutton. It was through this book that Hutton's principle of uniformitarianism first reached a wide audience. The idea was later taken up by Charles Lyell and Charles Darwin. Playfair is also remembered for his proposal of an alternative to Euclid's parallel postulate.
caption: John Playfair – Portrait by Henry Raeburn
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