Owing to changes in orthography since that time (his name was originally rendered as M'Laurine[3]), his surname is alternatively written MacLaurin.

He graduated Master of Arts three years later by defending a thesis on the Power of Gravity, and remained at Glasgow to study divinity until he was 19, when he was elected professor of mathematics in a ten-day competition at Marischal College and University in Aberdeen.

[5] In the vacations of 1719 and 1721, Maclaurin went to London, where he became acquainted with Isaac Newton, Benjamin Hoadly, Samuel Clarke, Martin Folkes, and other philosophers.

Maclaurin used Taylor series to characterize maxima, minima, and points of inflection for infinitely differentiable functions in his Treatise of Fluxions.

The subject continues to be of scientific interest, and Nobel Laureate Subramanyan Chandrasekhar dedicated a chapter of his book Ellipsoidal Figures of Equilibrium to Maclaurin spheroids.

His eldest son John Maclaurin studied law, was a Senator of the College of Justice, and became Lord Dreghorn; he was also joint founder of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.

[12] Maclaurin actively opposed the Jacobite rising of 1745 and superintended the operations necessary for the defence of Edinburgh against the Highland army.

On his journey south, Maclaurin fell from his horse, and the fatigue, anxiety, and cold to which he was exposed on that occasion laid the foundations of dropsy.

Colin MacLaurin Road within Edinburgh University's King's Buildings complex is named in his honour.