Museum boerhaave christiaan huygens biography

Christian Huygens, a Dutch inventor, astronomer, and mathematical physicist, was born Apr. 14, 1629.  Several years ago, we featured Huygens in this space, marking the day of his death, and at that time we discussed his discovery of the rings of Saturn.  Today we celebrate his invention of the pendulum clock.  Galileo had earlier discovered that a pendulum is "isochronous," so that every swing takes the same amount of time, and would thus make a perfect regulator for a clock, but he did not figure out how to couple a pendulum to a clockwork mechanism.  Huygens did.  He dated his invention to Dec. 25, 1656, meaning he had a workable clock on that date, and he applied for a patent on June 14, 1657, receiving that patent two days later.

Huygens published a treatise, Horologium, in 1658, with a woodcut illustrating the mechanism of a second clock, but that treatise is practically non-existent today. Fifteen years later, he published a more substantial book, Horologium oscillatorium (1673), in which he provided a slightly different woodcut that pictures his very first clock of 1656/57. We have that work in our Collections, and we display the woodcut above (first image). The pendulum is shown twice, in an oblique view at the right, and then from the side, attached to the clock mechanism. The swing of the pendulum rocks a small L-shaped wire back and forth, which in turn rotates a pair of tabs on a rod at the top of the clock (the verge), which allows the crown-shaped wheel to advance in steps. The L-shaped wire also "powers" the pendulum, providing it with a small boost on every swing, driven by a slowly falling weight.

Notice the curved "cheeks" at the top of the pendulum. This was the final invention by Huygens that made the pendulum clock really workable, and presumably the modification he first put in place on Dec. 25, 1656. Galileo thought a pendulum was isoc

Dutch mathematician and physicist (1629–1695)

For the ocean liner, see MS Christiaan Huygens.

Christiaan Huygens, Lord of Zeelhem, FRS (HY-gənz,HOY-gənz;Dutch:[ˈkrɪstijaːnˈɦœyɣə(n)s]; also spelled Huyghens; Latin: Hugenius; 14 April 1629 – 8 July 1695) was a Dutch mathematician, physicist, engineer, astronomer, and inventor who is regarded as a key figure in the Scientific Revolution. In physics, Huygens made seminal contributions to optics and mechanics, while as an astronomer he studied the rings of Saturn and discovered its largest moon, Titan. As an engineer and inventor, he improved the design of telescopes and invented the pendulum clock, the most accurate timekeeper for almost 300 years. A talented mathematician and physicist, his works contain the first idealization of a physical problem by a set of mathematicalparameters, and the first mathematical and mechanistic explanation of an unobservable physical phenomenon.

Huygens first identified the correct laws of elastic collision in his work De Motu Corporum ex Percussione, completed in 1656 but published posthumously in 1703. In 1659, Huygens derived geometrically the formula in classical mechanics for the centrifugal force in his work De vi Centrifuga, a decade before Isaac Newton. In optics, he is best known for his wave theory of light, which he described in his Traité de la Lumière (1690). His theory of light was initially rejected in favour of Newton's corpuscular theory of light, until Augustin-Jean Fresnel adapted Huygens's principle to give a complete explanation of the rectilinear propagation and diffraction effects of light in 1821. Today this principle is known as the Huygens–Fresnel principle.

Huygens invented the pendulum clock in 1657, which he patented the same year. His horological research resulted in an extensive analysis of the pend

Cover title.

Translated by: Translation Division of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

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Catalog of 1979 exhibition on occasion of the 350th birthday of Huygens held at the Dutch National Museum for the History of Science

Elderly Dutch people will remember him from the 25 Guilder banknote, but many have no idea who their compatriot Christiaan Huygens was. Yet, the seventeenth-century astronomer and inventor was one of the most important scientists the Netherlands has ever produced. A new biography gives Huygens the credit he deserves.

On 14 January 2005, Huygens made a soft landing on Titan, the largest moon of Saturn. The European Space Agency’s (“ESA”) probe was named after Christiaan Huygens, the Dutch naturalist who discovered Titan in 1655 – the first new object in the solar system since Galilei observed four Jupiter moons in 1610. Huygens had built the telescope that he pointed to the sky in The Hague together with his brother Constantijn. With its four-meter length and fifty times magnification, Huygens’ telescope overshadowed those of his Italian competitors. This was due to the quality of the self-sharpened lenses, a craft the brothers mastered to perfection.

When Huygens was sufficiently sure of his case and had determined the orbital period of the moon, he recorded his discovery. He did so by means of an anagram, a method that was often used in the seventeenth century. In his letters to colleagues in London and Prague, he mentioned a quotation from Ovid, ADMOVERE OCVLIS DISTANTIA SIDERA NOSTRIS, plus a series of movable type: VVVVVVVCC CRRHNBQX. Properly rearranged it gives Saturno luna sua circunducitur diebus sodexim, horis quatuor: “Saturn’s moon orbits in sixteen days and four hours.” A year later, in March 1656, Huygens made his discovery known to the world through a pamphlet.

At that moment, he shifted his attention to the mystery of the strange appendages of Saturn. Careful observation and visual