William Playfair, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death

William Playfair

British mathematician, engineer and political economist

Date of Birth: 22-Sep-1758

Place of Birth: Dundee, Scotland, United Kingdom

Date of Death: 11-Feb-1824

Profession: engineer, mathematician, economist, statistician

Nationality: United Kingdom

Zodiac Sign: Virgo

William Playfair (22 September 1759 – 11 February 1823), a Scottish engineer and political economist, served as a secret agent on behalf of Great Britain during its war with France.
The founder of graphical methods of statistics, Playfair invented several types of diagrams: in 1786 the line, area and bar chart of economic data, and in 1801 the pie chart and circle graph, used to show part-whole relations.
As secret agent, Playfair reported on the French Revolution and organized a clandestine counterfeiting operation in 1793 to collapse the French currency.