William Playfair

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This article is about the inventor of statistical graphics. For the architect, see William Henry Playfair.

William Playfair (September 22, 1759 - February 11, 1823) was a Scottish engineer and political economist who made important innovations in the field of information graphics.

Playfairs' trade balance time series chart
Playfairs' trade balance time series chart

Playfair, who argued that charts communicated better than tables of data, has been credited with inventing the line, bar, and pie charts. His time series plots are still presented as models of clarity.

Playfair first published The Commercial and Political Atlas in 1786, in London. It contained 43 time series plots and one bar chart, a form apparently introduced in this work. It has been described as the first major work to contain statistical graphs.

One of William Playfair's piechart in his Statistical Breviary, depicting the proportions of the Turkish Empire located in Asia, Europe and Africa before 1789.
One of William Playfair's piechart in his Statistical Breviary, depicting the proportions of the Turkish Empire located in Asia, Europe and Africa before 1789.

Playfair's Statistical Breviary, published in London in 1801, contains what is generally credited as the first pie chart.[1][2]

Contents

[edit] Life

Spence & Wainer (in Statisticians of the Centuries) describe Playfair as "engineer, political economist and scoundrel" while "Eminent Scotsmen" calls him an "ingenious mechanic and miscellaneous writer." It compares his career with the glorious one of his older brother John Playfair, the distinguished Edinburgh professor, and draws a moral about the importance of "steadiness and consistency of plan" as well as of "genius."

William was the fourth son of the Reverend James Playfair of the parish of Liff & Benvie near the city of Dundee, Scotland. The Reverend James died when William was small and his education was "superintended" by his brother John. William's career as an engineer took him from working for James Watt as draftsman and personal assistant to making inventions. He spent an eventful time in Paris, taking part in the storming of the Bastille. In London he opened a "security bank" which failed. He was a prolific writer from an early age and in the latter part of his life supported himself by writing. (The works for which he is now famous are not mentioned in the obituary and they only began to be appreciated in the twentieth century.)

William's other notable brother was the architect James Playfair.

[edit] Playfair cycle

The following quotation, known as the Playfair cycle, has achieved noteriety as it pertains to the Tytler cycle:

...wealth and power have never been long permanent in any place.
...they travel over the face of the earth,
something like a caravan of merchants.
On their arrival, every thing is found green and fresh;
while they remain all is bustle and abundance,
and, when gone, all is left trampled down, barren, and bare.[3]

[edit] See also

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Tufte, p. 44
  2. ^ Spence, Ian. No Humble Pie: The Origins and Usage of a statistical Chart. Journal of Educational and Behavioral Statistics. Winter 2005, 30 (4), 353–368.
  3. ^ Playfair, William, An Inquiry into the Permanent Causes of the Decline and Fall of Powerful and Wealthy Nations, p. 102

[edit] References

  • Playfair, William (1786). The Commercial and Political Atlas: Representing, by Means of Stained Copper-Plate Charts, the Progress of the Commerce, Revenues, Expenditure and Debts of England during the Whole of the Eighteenth Century. 
  • Playfair, William (2005). Commercial and Political Atlas and Statistical Breviary. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-85554-3. 
  • Playfair, William (2007). An Inquiry into the Permanent Causes of the Decline and Fall of Powerful and Wealthy Nations: Designed To Shew How The Prosperity Of The British Empire May Be Prolonged. BiblioBazaar. ISBN 1-434-60188-9. 
  • Spence, Ian and Howard Wainer (1997). Who Was Playfair ?. Chance 10, p. 35–37.
  • Spence, Ian and Howard Wainer (C.C. Heyde and E. Seneta, eds.) (2001). "William Playfair". Statisticians of the Centuries: 105–110. New York: Springer. 
  • Tufte, Edward R. (2001). The Visual Display of Quantitative Information. Chesire, CT: Graphics Press. ISBN 0961392142. 

[edit] External links

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