Christiaan Huygens, FRS (ˈhaɪɡənz, ˈɦœyɣə(n)s; (14 April 1629 – 8 July 1695) was a prominent
DutchThe Dutch people are an ethnic group native to the Netherlands. They share a common culture and speak the Dutch language. Dutch people and their descendants are found in migrant communities worldwide, notably in Suriname, Chile, Brazil, Canada, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, and the United...
mathematicianMathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...
,
astronomerAn astronomer is a scientist who studies celestial bodies such as planets, stars and galaxies.Historically, astronomy was more concerned with the classification and description of phenomena in the sky, while astrophysics attempted to explain these phenomena and the differences between them using...
,
physicistPhysics is a natural science that involves the study of matter and its motion through spacetime, along with related concepts such as energy and force. More broadly, it is the general analysis of nature, conducted in order to understand how the universe behaves.Physics is one of the oldest academic...
and
horologistHorology is the art or science of measuring time. Clocks, watches, clockwork, sundials, clepsydras, timers, time recorders and marine chronometers are all examples of instruments used to measure time.People interested in horology are called horologists...
. His work included early telescopic studies elucidating the nature of the
rings of SaturnThe rings of Saturn are the most extensive planetary ring system of any planet in the Solar System. They consist of countless small particles, ranging in size from micrometres to metres, that form clumps that in turn orbit about Saturn...
and the discovery of its moon
TitanTitan , or Saturn VI, is the largest moon of Saturn, the only natural satellite known to have a dense atmosphere, and the only object other than Earth for which clear evidence of stable bodies of surface liquid has been found....
, the invention of the
pendulum clockA pendulum clock is a clock that uses a pendulum, a swinging weight, as its timekeeping element. The advantage of a pendulum for timekeeping is that it is a resonant device; it swings back and forth in a precise time interval dependent on its length, and resists swinging at other rates...
and other investigations in timekeeping, and studies of both
opticsOptics is the branch of physics which involves the behavior and properties of light, including its interactions with matter and the construction of instruments that use or detect it. Optics usually describes the behavior of visible, ultraviolet, and infrared light...
and the
centrifugal forceCentrifugal force can generally be any force directed outward relative to some origin. More particularly, in classical mechanics, the centrifugal force is an outward force which arises when describing the motion of objects in a rotating reference frame...
.
Huygens achieved note for his argument that light consists of
waveIn physics, a wave is a disturbance that travels through space and time, accompanied by the transfer of energy.Waves travel and the wave motion transfers energy from one point to another, often with no permanent displacement of the particles of the medium—that is, with little or no associated mass...
s, now known as the Huygens–Fresnel principle, which two centuries later became instrumental in the understanding of wave-particle duality. He generally receives credit for his discovery of the centrifugal force, the laws for collision of bodies, for his role in the development of modern
calculusCalculus is a branch of mathematics focused on limits, functions, derivatives, integrals, and infinite series. This subject constitutes a major part of modern mathematics education. It has two major branches, differential calculus and integral calculus, which are related by the fundamental theorem...
and his original observations on sound perception (see
repetition pitchRepetition pitch is an unexpected sensation of tonality or pitch that often occurs in nature when a sound is reflected against a sound-reflecting surface , and both the original and the reflected sound arrive at the ear of an observer, but with a short time differential between the two...
). Huygens is seen as the first theoretical physicist as he was the first to use formulae in physics.
Life
Christiaan Huygens was born in April 1629 at
The HagueThe Hague is the capital city of the province of South Holland in the Netherlands. With a population of 500,000 inhabitants , it is the third largest city of the Netherlands, after Amsterdam and Rotterdam...
, the second son of
Constantijn HuygensConstantijn Huygens , was a Dutch Golden Age poet and composer. He was secretary to two Princes of Orange: Frederick Henry and William II, and the father of the scientist Christiaan Huygens.-Biography:...
, (1596–1687), a friend of mathematician and philosopher
René DescartesRené Descartes ; was a French philosopher and writer who spent most of his adult life in the Dutch Republic. He has been dubbed the 'Father of Modern Philosophy', and much subsequent Western philosophy is a response to his writings, which are studied closely to this day...
, and of Suzanna van Baerle (deceased 1637), whom Constantijn had married on 6 April 1627. Christiaan studied law and mathematics at the University of Leiden and the College of Orange in
BredaBreda is a municipality and a city in the southern part of the Netherlands. The name Breda derived from brede Aa and refers to the confluence of the rivers Mark and Aa. As a fortified city, the city was of strategic military and political significance...
. After a stint as a diplomat, Huygens turned to science.
French Academy of Sciences and Royal Society
The
Royal SocietyThe Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, known simply as the Royal Society, is a learned society for science, and is possibly the oldest such society in existence. Founded in November 1660, it was granted a Royal Charter by King Charles II as the "Royal Society of London"...
elected Huygens a member in 1663. In the year 1666, Huygens moved to Paris where he held a position at the
French Academy of SciencesThe French Academy of Sciences is a learned society, founded in 1666 by Louis XIV at the suggestion of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, to encourage and protect the spirit of French scientific research...
under the patronage of Louis XIV. Using the
Paris ObservatoryThe Paris Observatory is the foremost astronomical observatory of France, and one of the largest astronomical centres in the world...
(completed in 1672), he made further
astronomicalAstronomy is a natural science that deals with the study of celestial objects and phenomena that originate outside the atmosphere of Earth...
observations. In 1678 he introduced Nicolaas Hartsoeker to French scientists such as
Nicolas MalebrancheNicolas Malebranche ; was a French Oratorian and rationalist philosopher. In his works, he sought to synthesize the thought of St. Augustine and Descartes, in order to demonstrate the active role of God in every aspect of the world...
and Giovanni Cassini. In 1684, he published "Astroscopia Compendiaria" which presented his new
aerial (tubeless) telescopeAn aerial telescope is a type of very-long-focal-length refracting telescope built in the second half of the 17th century that did not use a tube. Instead, the objective was mounted on a pole, tree, tower, building or other structure on a swivel ball-joint. The observer stood on the ground and held...
.
Death
Huygens moved back to
The HagueThe Hague is the capital city of the province of South Holland in the Netherlands. With a population of 500,000 inhabitants , it is the third largest city of the Netherlands, after Amsterdam and Rotterdam...
in 1681 after suffering serious illness. He attempted to return to France in 1685 but the revocation of the
Edict of NantesThe Edict of Nantes, issued on 13 April 1598, by Henry IV of France, granted the Calvinist Protestants of France substantial rights in a nation still considered essentially Catholic. In the Edict, Henry aimed primarily to promote civil unity...
precluded this move. Huygens died in The Hague on 8 July 1695, and was buried in Grote Kerk.
Probability theory
After
Blaise Pascal Blaise Pascal , was a French mathematician, physicist, inventor, writer and Catholic philosopher. He was a child prodigy who was educated by his father, a tax collector in Rouen...
encouraged him to do so, Huygens wrote the first book on
probability theoryProbability theory is the branch of mathematics concerned with analysis of random phenomena. The central objects of probability theory are random variables, stochastic processes, and events: mathematical abstractions of non-deterministic events or measured quantities that may either be single...
,
De ratiociniis in ludo aleae ("On Reasoning in Games of Chance"), which he had published in 1657.
Mechanics
Huygens formulated what is now known as the second
law of motionNewton's laws of motion are three physical laws that form the basis for classical mechanics. They describe the relationship between the forces acting on a body and its motion due to those forces...
of
Isaac NewtonSir Isaac Newton PRS was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, alchemist, and theologian, who has been "considered by many to be the greatest and most influential scientist who ever lived."...
in a quadratic form . Newton reformulated and generalized that law. In 1659 Huygens derived the now well-known formula for the
centripetal forceCentripetal force is a force that makes a body follow a curved path: it is always directed orthogonal to the velocity of the body, toward the instantaneous center of curvature of the path. The mathematical description was derived in 1659 by Dutch physicist Christiaan Huygens...
, exerted by an object describing a circular motion, for instance on the string to which it is attached, in modern notation:
with m the mass of the object, v the
velocityIn physics, velocity is speed in a given direction. Speed describes only how fast an object is moving, whereas velocity gives both the speed and direction of the object's motion. To have a constant velocity, an object must have a constant speed and motion in a constant direction. Constant ...
and r the
radiusIn classical geometry, a radius of a circle or sphere is any line segment from its center to its perimeter. By extension, the radius of a circle or sphere is the length of any such segment, which is half the diameter. If the object does not have an obvious center, the term may refer to its...
.
Furthermore, Huygens concluded that Descartes' laws for the elastic
collisionA collision is an isolated event which two or more moving bodies exert forces on each other for a relatively short time.Although the most common colloquial use of the word "collision" refers to accidents in which two or more objects collide, the scientific use of the word "collision" implies...
of two bodies must be wrong and formulated the correct laws .
Wave theory
Huygens is remembered especially for his wave theory of light, which he first communicated in 1678 to France's Royal Academy of Sciences and which he published in 1690 in his
Treatise on light (see also
Huygens-Fresnel principleThe Huygens–Fresnel principle is a method of analysis applied to problems of wave propagation both in the far-field limit and in near-field diffraction.-History:...
). The later theory of light by
Isaac NewtonSir Isaac Newton PRS was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, alchemist, and theologian, who has been "considered by many to be the greatest and most influential scientist who ever lived."...
in his
Opticks proposed a different explanation for
reflectionReflection is the change in direction of a wavefront at an interface between two differentmedia so that the wavefront returns into the medium from which it originated. Common examples include the reflection of light, sound and water waves...
,
refractionRefraction is the change in direction of a wave due to a change in its speed. It is essentially a surface phenomenon . The phenomenon is mainly in governance to the law of conservation of energy. The proper explanation would be that due to change of medium, the phase velocity of the wave is changed...
and interference of light assuming the existence of light particles. The interference experiments of
Thomas YoungThomas Young was an English polymath. He is famous for having partly deciphered Egyptian hieroglyphics before Jean-François Champollion eventually expanded on his work...
vindicated Huygens' wave theory in 1801, as the results could no longer be explained with light particles (see however wave-particle duality).
Optics
Huygens experimented with double refraction (birefringence) in Icelandic crystal (
calciteCalcite is a carbonate mineral and the most stable polymorph of calcium carbonate . The other polymorphs are the minerals aragonite and vaterite. Aragonite will change to calcite at 380-470°C, and vaterite is even less stable.-Properties:...
) and explained it with his wavetheory and polarised light. He also investigated the use of lenses as projectors and should be credited as the earliest inventor, developer and designer of the Magic Lantern rather than German scholar
Athanasius KircherAthanasius Kircher was a 17th century German Jesuit scholar who published around 40 works, most notably in the fields of oriental studies, geology, and medicine...
who merely used much of Huygens research (often quite inaccurately) to document and publish on the subject.
Clocks
He also worked on the design of accurate
clockA clock is an instrument used to indicate, keep, and co-ordinate time. The word clock is derived ultimately from the Celtic words clagan and clocca meaning "bell". A silent instrument missing such a mechanism has traditionally been known as a timepiece...
s, suitable for naval
navigationNavigation is the process of monitoring and controlling the movement of a craft or vehicle from one place to another. It is also the term of art used for the specialized knowledge used by navigators to perform navigation tasks...
. His invention of the
pendulum clockA pendulum clock is a clock that uses a pendulum, a swinging weight, as its timekeeping element. The advantage of a pendulum for timekeeping is that it is a resonant device; it swings back and forth in a precise time interval dependent on its length, and resists swinging at other rates...
, patented in 1657, was a breakthrough in timekeeping. Huygens was a scholar, scientist, and inventor, not a clockmaker, and is not known ever to have made any clock himself; he contracted the construction of his clock designs to
Salomon CosterSalomon Coster is a Dutch clockmaker of the Hague, who in 1657 was the first clockmaker to make a pendulum clock, which had been invented by Christiaan Huygens . Costers' earliest pendulum clocks were signed "Samuel Coster Haghe met privilege" indicating that he had been authorized by the inventor...
in The Hague, who actually built the first pendulum clocks.
In 1673 he published his mathematical analysis of pendulums,
Horologium Oscillatorium sive de motu pendulorum, his greatest work on horology. It had been observed by
Marin MersenneMarin Mersenne, Marin Mersennus or le Père Mersenne was a French theologian, philosopher, mathematician and music theorist, often referred to as the "father of acoustics"...
and others that pendulums are not quite
isochronousIsochronous : From Greek iso, equal + chronos, time. It literally means regularly, or at equal time intervals. In general English language, it refers to something that occurs at a regular interval, of the same duration; as opposed to synchronous which refers to more than one thing happening at the...
, that is, their period depends on their width of swing, wide swings taking longer than narrow swings. Huygens analysed this problem by finding the shape of the curve down which a mass will slide under the influence of gravity in the same amount of time, regardless of its starting point; the so-called
tautochrone problemA tautochrone or isochrone curve is the curve for which the time taken by an object sliding without friction in uniform gravity to its lowest point is independent of its starting point...
. By geometrical methods which were an early use of
calculusCalculus is a branch of mathematics focused on limits, functions, derivatives, integrals, and infinite series. This subject constitutes a major part of modern mathematics education. It has two major branches, differential calculus and integral calculus, which are related by the fundamental theorem...
, he showed that this curve is a
cycloidA cycloid is the curve traced by a point on the rim of a circular wheel as the wheel rolls along a straight line.It is an example of a roulette, a curve generated by a curve rolling on another curve....
, not the circular arc of a pendulum's bob, so pendulums are not isochronous. He also solved the problem posed by Mersenne of how to calculate the period of a pendulum made of an arbitrarily shaped swinging rigid body, discovering the center of oscillation and its reciprocal relationship with the pivot point. In the same work, he analysed the
conical pendulumA conical pendulum is a weight fixed on the end of a string suspended from a pivot. Its construction is similar to an ordinary pendulum; however, instead of rocking back and forth, the bob of a conical pendulum moves at a constant speed in a circle with the string tracing out a cone...
, consisting of a weight on a cord moving in a circle, using the concept of centrifugal force.
Huygens was the first to derive the formula for the
periodFrequency is the number of occurrences of a repeating event per unit time. It is also referred to as temporal frequency.The period is the duration of one cycle in a repeating event, so the period is the reciprocal of the frequency...
of an ideal mathematical
pendulumA pendulum is a weight suspended from a pivot so that it can swing freely. When a pendulum is displaced from its resting equilibrium position, it is subject to a restoring force due to gravity that will accelerate it back toward the equilibrium position...
(with massless rod or cord), in modern notation:
with T the period, l the length of the pendulum and g the
gravitational accelerationIn physics, gravitational acceleration is the acceleration on an object caused by gravity. Neglecting friction such as air resistance, all small bodies accelerate in a gravitational field at the same rate relative to the center of mass....
.
Huygens also observed that two of his pendulum clocks mounted next to each other on the same support often become synchronized, swinging in opposite directions. He reported the results by letter to the
Royal Society of LondonThe Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, known simply as the Royal Society, is a learned society for science, and is possibly the oldest such society in existence. Founded in November 1660, it was granted a Royal Charter by King Charles II as the "Royal Society of London"...
and it is referred to it as "
an odd kind of sympathyThe phrase odd sympathy appears in the record of a letter by Dutch mathematician and physicist Christiaan Huygens to Sir Robert Moray as presented to the Royal Society of London, relating to the tendency of two pendulum clocks to synchronize with opposite phases when suspended side by side...
" in the Society's minutes. This may be the first published observation of what is now called coupled oscillations.
The oldest known Huygens style pendulum clock is dated 1657 and can be seen at the Museum Boerhaave in
Leiden which also shows an important astronomical clock owned and used by Huygens.
Huygens developed a
balance springA balance spring, or hairspring, is a part used in mechanical timepieces. The balance spring, attached to the balance wheel, controls the speed at which the wheels of the timepiece turn, and thus the rate of movement of the hands...
watch more or less contemporaneously with, though separately from,
Robert HookeRobert Hooke FRS was an English natural philosopher, architect and polymath.His adult life comprised three distinct periods: as a scientific inquirer lacking money; achieving great wealth and standing through his reputation for hard work and scrupulous honesty following the great fire of 1666, but...
, and controversy over who should be given credit for this important invention persisted for centuries. This is because Huygens watches employed a spiral balance spring. However it should be noted that Huygens used this form of spring initially only because the balance in his first watch rotated more than one and a half turns. He later used spiral springs in more conventional watches, made for him by Thuret in Paris from around 1675.
Such springs are essential in modern watches with a detached lever escapement because they can be adjusted for isochronism. Based on this fact, many writers in the past and even the present have given Huygens the credit for inventing the modern form of spiral balance spring in 1675 rather than Hooke's earlier straight spring of 1665 because they considered that the spiral form automatically conferred the property of isochronism on the oscillating balance. However this assumption is incorrect, as all watches in the time of Huygens and Hooke employed the very un-detached verge escapement, the action of which destroys the isochronal properties of any form of balance spring, spiral or otherwise.
In February 2006, a long-lost copy of Hooke's handwritten notes from several decades of
Royal SocietyThe Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, known simply as the Royal Society, is a learned society for science, and is possibly the oldest such society in existence. Founded in November 1660, it was granted a Royal Charter by King Charles II as the "Royal Society of London"...
meetings was discovered in a cupboard in Hampshire, and the balance-spring controversy appears, by evidence contained in those notes, to be settled in favour of Hooke's claim.
The watches which were made in Paris from C.1675 and following Huygens plan, are notable for lacking a fusee for equalizing the mainspring torque, showing that Huygens thought that his spiral spring would isochronise the balance, in the same way that he thought that the cycloidally shaped suspension curbs on his clocks would isochronise the pendulum.
Internal combustion and other inventions
In 1673, Huygens carried out experiments with internal combustion. Although he designed a basic form of
internal combustion engineThe internal combustion engine is an engine in which the combustion of a fuel occurs with an oxidizer in a combustion chamber. In an internal combustion engine, the expansion of the high-temperature and high -pressure gases produced by combustion apply direct force to some component of the engine...
, fueled by gunpowder, he never successfully built one.Even though he was unsuccessful with building his internal combustion engine he had given many other scientist the capability to do so.
In 1675, Christiaan Huygens patented a
pocket watchA pocket watch is a watch that is made to be carried in a pocket, as opposed to a wristwatch, which is strapped to the wrist. They were the most common type of watch from their development in the 16th century until wristwatches became popular after World War I during which a transitional design,...
. He also invented numerous other devices, including a 31-tone-to-the-octave keyboard instrument that made use of his discovery of
31 equal temperamentIn music, 31 equal temperament, 31-ET, which can also be abbreviated 31-TET, 31-EDO , , is the tempered scale derived by dividing the octave into 31 equal-sized steps...
.
Astronomy
Saturn's rings and Titan
In 1655, Huygens proposed that
SaturnSaturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second largest planet in the Solar System, after Jupiter. Saturn is named after the Roman god Saturn, equated to the Greek Cronus , the Babylonian Ninurta and the Hindu Shani. Saturn's astronomical symbol represents the Roman god's sickle.Saturn,...
was surrounded by a solid ring, "a thin, flat ring, nowhere touching, and inclined to the ecliptic." Using a 50 power
refracting telescopeA refracting or refractor telescope is a type of optical telescope that uses a lens as its objective to form an image . The refracting telescope design was originally used in spy glasses and astronomical telescopes but is also used for long focus camera lenses...
that he designed himself, Huygens also discovered the first of Saturn's moons,
TitanTitan , or Saturn VI, is the largest moon of Saturn, the only natural satellite known to have a dense atmosphere, and the only object other than Earth for which clear evidence of stable bodies of surface liquid has been found....
. In the same year he observed and sketched the
Orion NebulaThe Orion Nebula is a diffuse nebula situated south of Orion's Belt. It is one of the brightest nebulae, and is visible to the naked eye in the night sky. M42 is located at a distance of and is the closest region of massive star formation to Earth. The M42 nebula is estimated to be 24 light...
. His drawing, the first such known of the Orion nebula, was published in
Systema Saturnium in 1659. Using his modern telescope he succeeded in subdividing the nebula into different stars. (The brighter interior of the Orion Nebula bears the name of the
Huygens Region in his honour.) He also discovered several
interstellar nebulaeA nebula is an interstellar cloud of dust, hydrogen gas, helium gas and other ionized gases...
and some
double starIn observational astronomy, a double star is a pair of stars that appear close to each other in the sky as seen from Earth when viewed through an optical telescope. This can happen either because the pair forms a binary star, i.e...
s.
Transit of Mercury
On 3 May 1661, he observed the planet
MercuryMercury is the innermost and smallest planet in the Solar System, orbiting the Sun once every 87.969 Earth days. The orbit of Mercury has the highest eccentricity of all the Solar System planets, and it has the smallest axial tilt. It completes three rotations about its axis for every two orbits...
transit over the Sun, using the telescope of telescope maker Richard Reeves in London together with astronomer Thomas Streete and Richard Reeves.
Extraterrestrial Life
Christiaan Huygens believed in existence of
extraterrestrial lifeExtraterrestrial life is defined as life that does not originate from Earth...
. Prior to his death in 1695, he completed a book entitled
Cosmotheoros in which he discussed his notions on extraterrestrial life. Huygens was of the opinion that life on other planets is similar to that on Earth. He thought that availability of water in liquid form was essential for life and therefore the properties of water should vary from planet to planet, since the kind of water that is found on Earth would instantly freeze on Jupiter and vaporize on Venus. He even reported observing dark and bright spots on the surface of planet Mars and Jupiter. This he explained could be justified only by the presence of water and ice on those planets.
Works
- 1649 – De iis quae liquido supernatant (About the parts above the water, unpublished)
- 1651 – Cyclometriae
- 1651 – Theoremata de quadratura hyperboles, ellipsis et circuli (theorems concerning the quadrature
Quadrature — historical mathematical term which means calculating of the area. Quadrature problems have served as one of the main sources of mathematical analysis.- History :...
of the hyperbolaIn mathematics a hyperbola is a curve, specifically a smooth curve that lies in a plane, which can be defined either by its geometric properties or by the kinds of equations for which it is the solution set. A hyperbola has two pieces, called connected components or branches, which are mirror...
, ellipseIn geometry, an ellipse is a plane curve that results from the intersection of a cone by a plane in a way that produces a closed curve. Circles are special cases of ellipses, obtained when the cutting plane is orthogonal to the cone's axis...
and circleA circle is a simple shape of Euclidean geometry consisting of those points in a plane that are a given distance from a given point, the centre. The distance between any of the points and the centre is called the radius....
, Huygens' first publication)
- 1654 – De circuli magnitudine inventa
- 1656 – De Saturni Luna observatio nova (About the new observation of the moon
Titan , or Saturn VI, is the largest moon of Saturn, the only natural satellite known to have a dense atmosphere, and the only object other than Earth for which clear evidence of stable bodies of surface liquid has been found....
of Saturn – discovery of Titan)
- 1656 – De motu corporum ex percussione, published only in 1703
- 1657 – De ratiociniis in ludo aleae = Van reeckening
Probability is ordinarily used to describe an attitude of mind towards some proposition of whose truth we arenot certain. The proposition of interest is usually of the form "Will a specific event occur?" The attitude of mind is of the form "How certain are we that the event will occur?" The...
in spelen van geluck (translated by Frans van SchootenFranciscus van Schooten was a Dutch mathematician who is most known for popularizing the analytic geometry of René Descartes.-Life:...
)
- 1659 – Systema saturnium (on the planet Saturn)
- 1673 – Horologium oscillatorium sive de motu pendularium (theory and design of the pendulum clock, dedicated to Louis XIV of France
Louis XIV , known as Louis the Great or the Sun King , was a Bourbon monarch who ruled as King of France and Navarre. His reign, from 1643 to his death in 1715, began at the age of four and lasted seventy-two years, three months, and eighteen days...
)
- 1673 – De vi centrifuga (Concerning the centrifugal force
Centrifugal force can generally be any force directed outward relative to some origin. More particularly, in classical mechanics, the centrifugal force is an outward force which arises when describing the motion of objects in a rotating reference frame...
)
- 1684 – Astroscopia Compendiaria tubi optici molimine liberata (compound telescopes without a tube)
- 1685 – Memoriën aengaende het slijpen van glasen tot verrekijckers
A telescope is an instrument that aids in the observation of remote objects by collecting electromagnetic radiation . The first known practical telescopes were invented in the Netherlands at the beginning of the 1600s , using glass lenses...
(How to grind telescope lenses)
- 1686 – (How to use clocks to establish the longitude
Longitude is a geographic coordinate that specifies the east-west position of a point on the Earth's surface. It is an angular measurement, usually expressed in degrees, minutes and seconds, and denoted by the Greek letter lambda ....
)
- 1690 – Traité de la lumière
- 1690 – Discours de la cause de la pesanteur (Discourse about gravity, from 1669?)
- 1691 – Lettre touchant le cycle harmonique (Rotterdam, concerning the 31-tone system
In music, 31 equal temperament, 31-ET, which can also be abbreviated 31-TET, 31-EDO , , is the tempered scale derived by dividing the octave into 31 equal-sized steps...
)
- 1698 – Cosmotheoros (solar system, cosmology, life in the universe)
- 1703 – Opuscula posthuma including
De motu corporum ex percussione (Concerning the motions of colliding bodies – contains the first correct laws for collision, dating from 1656).
- Descriptio automati planetarii (description and design of a planetarium
A planetarium is a theatre built primarily for presenting educational and entertaining shows about astronomy and the night sky, or for training in celestial navigation...
)
1724 – Novus cyclus harmonicus (Leiden, after Huygens' death)
1728 – Christiani Hugenii Zuilichemii, dum viveret Zelhemii toparchae, opuscula posthuma ... (pub. 1728) Alternate title: Opera reliqua, concerning optics and physics
- 1888-1950 – Huygens, Christiaan. Oeuvres complètes. The Hague Complete work, editors D. Bierens de Haan (tome=deel 1-5), J. Bosscha (6-10), D.J. Korteweg (11-15), A.A. Nijland
Albertus Antonie Nijland was a Dutch astronomer.He was professor of astronomy at the Rijksuniversiteit Utrecht, and served as director of the Sterrewacht Sonnenborgh of the university.In 1901 he participated in a Dutch solar eclipse expedition to Karang Sago, Sumatra.He was...
(15), J.A. Vollgraf (16-22).
- Tome I: Correspondance 1638-1656 (1888). Tome II: Correspondance 1657-1659 (1889). Tome III: Correspondance 1660-1661 (1890). Tome IV: Correspondance 1662-1663 (1891). Tome V: Correspondance 1664-1665 (1893). Tome VI: Correspondance 1666-1669 (1895). Tome VII: Correspondance 1670-1675 (1897). Tome VIII: Correspondance 1676-1684 (1899). Tome IX: Correspondance 1685-1690 (1901). Tome X: Correspondance 1691-1695 (1905).
- Tome XI: Travaux mathématiques 1645-1651 (1908). Tome XII: Travaux mathématiques pures 1652-1656 (1910).
- Tome XIII, Fasc. I: Dioptrique 1653, 1666 (1916). Tome XIII, Fasc. II: Dioptrique 1685-1692 (1916).
- Tome XIV: Calcul des probabilités. Travaux de mathématiques pures 1655-1666 (1920).
- Tome XV: Observations astronomiques. Système de Saturne. Travaux astronomiques 1658-1666 (1925).
- Tome XVI: Mécanique jusqu’à 1666. Percussion. Question de l’existence et de la perceptibilité du mouvement absolu. Force centrifuge (1929). Tome XVII: L’horloge à pendule de 1651 à 1666. Travaux divers de physique, de mécanique et de technique de 1650 à 1666. Traité des couronnes et des parhélies (1662 ou 1663) (1932). Tome XVIII: L'horloge à pendule ou à balancier de 1666 à 1695. Anecdota (1934). Tome XIX: Mécanique théorique et physique de 1666 à 1695. Huygens à l’Académie royale des sciences (1937).
- Tome XX: Musique et mathématique. Musique. Mathématiques de 1666 à 1695 (1940).
- Tome XXI: Cosmologie (1944).
- Tome XXII: Supplément à la correspondance. Varia. Biographie de Chr. Huygens. Catalogue de la vente des livres de Chr. Huygens (1950).
During his lifetime
- 1639 – His father Constantijn Huygens
Constantijn Huygens , was a Dutch Golden Age poet and composer. He was secretary to two Princes of Orange: Frederick Henry and William II, and the father of the scientist Christiaan Huygens.-Biography:...
in the midst of his five children by Adriaen HannemanAdriaen Hanneman was a Dutch Golden Age painter best-known today for his portraits of the exiled British royal court. His style was strongly influenced by his contemporary, Anthony Van Dyck.-Biography:...
, painting with medaillons, MauritshuisThe Royal Picture Gallery Mauritshuis is an art museum in The Hague, the Netherlands. Previously the residence of count John Maurice of Nassau, it now has a large art collection, including paintings by Dutch painters such as Johannes Vermeer, Rembrandt van Rijn, Jan Steen, Paulus Potter and Frans...
, The HagueThe Hague is the capital city of the province of South Holland in the Netherlands. With a population of 500,000 inhabitants , it is the third largest city of the Netherlands, after Amsterdam and Rotterdam...
- 1671 – Portrait by Caspar Netscher
Caspar Netscher was a Dutch portrait and genre painter. He was a master in depicting oriental rugs, silk and brocade and introduced an international style to the Northern Netherlands.-Life:...
, Museum Boerhaave, Leiden, loan from Haags Historisch Museum
- ~1675 – Possible depiction of Huygens on l, 1666 by Henri Testelin
Henri Testelin was a French art painter.Henri Testelin made portraits of Louis XIV, important persons and events at the French court. Several of his paintings can be seen in the palace of Versailles...
. ColbertJean-Baptiste Colbert was a French politician who served as the Minister of Finances of France from 1665 to 1683 under the rule of King Louis XIV. His relentless hard work and thrift made him an esteemed minister. He achieved a reputation for his work of improving the state of French manufacturing...
presents the members of the newly founded Académie des Sciences to king Louis XIV of FranceLouis XIV , known as Louis the Great or the Sun King , was a Bourbon monarch who ruled as King of France and Navarre. His reign, from 1643 to his death in 1715, began at the age of four and lasted seventy-two years, three months, and eighteen days...
. Musée National du Château et des Trianons de Versailles, Versailles
- 1679 – Medaillon
A locket is a pendant that opens to reveal a space used for storing a photograph or other small item such as a curl of hair. Lockets are usually given to loved ones on holidays such as Valentine's Day and occasions such as Christenings, weddings and, most noticeably during the Victorian Age,...
portrait in reliefRelief is a sculptural technique. The term relief is from the Latin verb levo, to raise. To create a sculpture in relief is thus to give the impression that the sculpted material has been raised above the background plane...
by the French sculptor Jean-Jacques ClérionJean-Jacques Clérion was a French sculptor who worked mainly for King Louis XIV.Clérion was born in either Aix-en-Provence or Trets. For much of his career he worked on the Chateau de Versailles, including many of the famous garden sculptures, such as the "Apollo Fountain"...
- 1686 – Portrait in pastel by Bernard Vaillant
Bernard Vaillant , was a Dutch Golden Age painter.-Biography:According to Houbraken he accompanied his older brother Wallerant Vaillant on all of his travels. He moved to Rotterdam to become deacon of the Walloon church there, but died unexpectedly in Leiden.According to the RKD he was the younger...
, Museum HofwijckHofwijck is a mansion built for 17th-century politician Constantijn Huygens. It is located in Voorburg on the Vliet canal from Den Haag to Leiden, and its formal address is 2 Westeinde, Voorburg, the Netherlands, but its location today is better known as the Voorburg railway...
, VoorburgVoorburg is a Dutch town and former municipality in the western part of the province of South Holland, the Netherlands. As also Leidschendam and Stompwijk, it is part of the municipality Leidschendam-Voorburg. It has approximately 39,000 inhabitants....
- between 1684 and 1687 – Engraving by G. Edelinck after the painting by Caspar Netscher
Caspar Netscher was a Dutch portrait and genre painter. He was a master in depicting oriental rugs, silk and brocade and introduced an international style to the Northern Netherlands.-Life:...
- 1688 – Portrait by Pierre Bourguignon
Pierre Bourguignon is a member of the National Assembly of France. He represents the Seine-Maritime department, and is a member of the Socialiste, radical, citoyen et divers gauche.-Personal life:...
, Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen, AmsterdamAmsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...
Science
- The Huygens probe
The Huygens probe was an atmospheric entry probe carried to Saturn's moon Titan as part of the Cassini–Huygens mission. The probe was supplied by the European Space Agency and named after the Dutch 17th century astronomer Christiaan Huygens....
: The lander for the Saturnian moonThe Moon is Earth's only known natural satellite,There are a number of near-Earth asteroids including 3753 Cruithne that are co-orbital with Earth: their orbits bring them close to Earth for periods of time but then alter in the long term . These are quasi-satellites and not true moons. For more...
Titan, part of the Cassini–Huygens Mission to Saturn
- Asteroid 2801 Huygens
2801 Huygens is a small main belt asteroid, which was discovered by Hendrik van Gent in 1935. It belongs to the Gefion family of asteroids. It is named after Christiaan Huygens, the Dutch astronomer, mathematician and physicist....
- A crater on Mars
- Mons Huygens, a mountain on the Moon
The Moon is Earth's only known natural satellite,There are a number of near-Earth asteroids including 3753 Cruithne that are co-orbital with Earth: their orbits bring them close to Earth for periods of time but then alter in the long term . These are quasi-satellites and not true moons. For more...
- Huygens Software
Huygens software refers to different multiplatform microscope image processing packages from Scientific Volume Imaging, made for restoring 2D and 3D microscopy images or time series and analyzing and visualizing them....
, a microscope image processingMicroscope image processing is a broad term that covers the use of digital image processing techniques to process, analyze and present images obtained from a microscope. Such processing is now commonplace in a number of diverse fields such as medicine, biological research, cancer research, drug...
package.
- A two element eyepiece designed by him. An early step in the development of the achromatic lens
An achromatic lens or achromat is a lens that is designed to limit the effects of chromatic and spherical aberration. Achromatic lenses are corrected to bring two wavelengths into focus in the same plane....
, since it corrects some chromatic aberrationIn optics, chromatic aberration is a type of distortion in which there is a failure of a lens to focus all colors to the same convergence point. It occurs because lenses have a different refractive index for different wavelengths of light...
.
- The Huygens–Fresnel principle, a simple model to understand disturbances in wave propagation.
- Huygens wavelets, the fundamental mathematical basis for scalar
In linear algebra, real numbers are called scalars and relate to vectors in a vector space through the operation of scalar multiplication, in which a vector can be multiplied by a number to produce another vector....
diffractionDiffraction refers to various phenomena which occur when a wave encounters an obstacle. Italian scientist Francesco Maria Grimaldi coined the word "diffraction" and was the first to record accurate observations of the phenomenon in 1665...
theory
- W.I.S.V. Christiaan Huygens: Dutch study guild for the studies Mathematics and Computer Science at the Delft University of Technology
Delft University of Technology , also known as TU Delft, is the largest and oldest Dutch public technical university, located in Delft, Netherlands...
- Huygens Laboratory: Home of the Physics department at Leiden University, Netherlands
- Huygens Supercomputer: National Supercomputer facility of the Netherlands, located at SARA
Stichting Academisch Rekencentrum Amsterdam is a Dutch foundation that provides supercomputers, colocation, networks and high-end visualisation to academic institutions...
in Amsterdam
- The Huygens-building in Noordwijk, Netherlands, first building on the Space Business park opposite Estec (ESA)
- The Huygens-building at the Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands. One of the major buildings of the science department at the university of Nijmegen.
Other
- Christiaan Huygens College, High School located in Eindhoven, Netherlands.
- The Christiaan Huygens, a ship of the Nederland Line
The Stoomvaart Maatschappij Nederland or SMN, also known as the Netherland Line or Nederland Line, was a Dutch shipping line that operated from 1870 until 1970, when it merged with several other companies to form what would become Royal Nedlloyd...
.
- Huygens Scholarship Programme for international students and Dutch students
See also
Further reading
- Andriesse, C.D.
Cornelis Dirk Andriesse is a Dutch physicist, writer and historian of science. Internationally he is best known for his scientific biography of Christiaan Huygens.- Education :...
, 2005, Huygens The Man Behind the Principle. Foreword by Sally Miedema. Cambridge University PressCambridge University Press is the publishing business of the University of Cambridge. Granted letters patent by Henry VIII in 1534, it is the world's oldest publishing house, and the second largest university press in the world...
.
- Boyer, C.B.
Carl Benjamin Boyer was a historian of sciences, and especially mathematics. David Foster Wallace called him the "Gibbon of math history"....
: A history of mathematics, New York, 1968
- Dijksterhuis, E. J.
Eduard Jan Dijksterhuis was a Dutch historian of science.-Career:He studied mathematics at the University of Groningen from 1911 to 1918 and titled his Ph.D. thesis "A Contributions to the Knowledge of the Flat Helicoid." From 1916 to 1953 he was a professor and taught mathematics, physics and...
: The Mechanization of the World Picture: Pythagoras to Newton
- Hooijmaijers, H.: Telling time – Devices for time measurement in Museum Boerhaave – A Descriptive Catalogue, Leiden, Museum Boerhaave, 2005
- Struik, D.J.
Dirk Jan Struik was a Dutch mathematician and Marxian theoretician who spent most of his life in the United States.- Life :...
: A history of mathematics
- Van den Ende, H. et al.: Huygens's Legacy, The golden age of the pendulum clock, Fromanteel Ltd, Castle Town, Isle of Man, 2004
- Yoder, J G., 2005, "Book on the pendulum clock" in Ivor Grattan-Guinness
Ivor Grattan-Guinness, born 23 June 1941, in Bakewell, in England, is a historian of mathematics and logic.He gained his Bachelor degree as a Mathematics Scholar at Wadham College, Oxford, got an M.Sc in Mathematical Logic and the Philosophy of Science at the London School of Economics in 1966...
, ed., Landmark Writings in Western Mathematics. Elsevier: 33-45.
- Christiaan Huygens (1629-1695) : Library of Congress Citations. Retrieved 2005-03-30.
Primary sources, translations
Museums
Other