Colin MacLaurin

Colin Maclaurin, who lived from 1698 to 1746, was a Scottish mathematician born in Kilmodan who made important contributions to geometry and algebra. Orphaned young and raised by his uncle, he entered the University of Glasgow at eleven, graduated Master of Arts three years later with a thesis on the power of gravity, and at nineteen won a ten-day competition for the chair of mathematics at Marischal College in Aberdeen, a record as the world's youngest professor that stood until 2008. He met Isaac Newton in London, was admitted to the Royal Society, and in 1725 was appointed deputy to the mathematics professor at the University of Edinburgh on Newton's recommendation, succeeding to the chair that November. His Treatise of Fluxions used Taylor series to characterize maxima, minima and points of inflection, which is why the Taylor series expanded around zero is sometimes called the Maclaurin series. He also studied the gravitational attraction of ellipsoids, independently found the Euler-Maclaurin formula, and in his Treatise of Algebra, published in 1748, proved a rule for solving linear systems that preceded Cramer's publication by two years. He died in Edinburgh in 1746.