William Playfair (22 September 1759 – 11 February 1823) was a Scottish engineer and political economist, the founder of graphical methods of statistics.
William Playfair invented four types of diagrams: in 1786 the line graph and bar chart of economic data, and in 1801 the pie chart and circle graph, used to show part-whole relations.
Playfair was born in 1759 in Scotland during the Enlightenment, a Golden Age in the arts, sciences, industry and ...
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William Playfair (22 September 1759 – 11 February 1823) was a Scottish engineer and political economist, the founder of graphical methods of statistics.
William Playfair invented four types of diagrams: in 1786 the line graph and bar chart of economic data, and in 1801 the pie chart and circle graph, used to show part-whole relations.
Playfair was born in 1759 in Scotland during the Enlightenment, a Golden Age in the arts, sciences, industry and commerce. He was the fourth son of the reverend James Playfair of the parish of Liff & Benvie near the city of Dundee in Scotland; his notable brothers were architect James Playfair and mathematician John Playfair. His father died in 1772 when William was 13, leaving the eldest brother John to care for the family and his education. After his apprenticeship with Andrew Meikle, the inventor of the threshing machine, he became draftsman and personal assistant to James Watt in 1777 at 18.
Playfair had a variety of careers. He was in turn a...
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