Alex KurtagicJohn Robison (1739 - 1805) was a Scottish physician and mathematician. As a young man he sailed with the Royal Navy on General James Wolfe's expedition to Quebec and Portugal, where his mathematical skills were employed in navigation and surveying. I 1766 he succeeded Joseph Black as Professor of Chemistry at the University of Glasgow. He later travelled to Saint Petersburg as the secretary of Admiral Charles Knowles, where he taught mathematics to the cadets at the Naval Academy at Kronstadt, obtaining the rank of lieutenant colonel. Once back in Scotland, he taught philosophy at the University of Edinburgh and was the first General Secretary of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. The inventor of the siren, and collaborator of James Watt in the development of an early steam car, he contributed articles to the Encyclopaedia Britannica on science, mathematics, and technology. Read More Read Less