Everything about Christiaan Huygens totally explained
Christiaan Huygens (in English, in
Dutch) (
April 14,
1629 –
July 8,
1695) was a
Dutch mathematician,
astronomer and
physicist; born in
The Hague as the son of
Constantijn Huygens, a friend of
René Descartes. He studied law and mathematics at the
University of Leiden and the College of Orange in
Breda before turning to science. Historians commonly associate Huygens with the
scientific revolution.
Life and works
Huygens achieved note for his arguments that
light consisted of
waves, which became instrumental in the understanding of
wave-particle duality. He generally receives credit for his role in the development of modern
calculus and his original observations on sound perception (see
Repetition Pitch). In 1655, he discovered
Saturn's moon
Titan. He also examined
Saturn's planetary rings, and in 1656 he discovered that those rings consisted of rocks. In the same year he observed and sketched the
Orion Nebula. 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 nebulae and some
double stars. Huygens formulated what is now known as the second
law of motion of
Isaac Newton in a quadratic form. Newton reformulated and generalized that law.
After
Blaise Pascal encouraged him to do so, Huygens wrote the first book on
probability theory, which he'd published in 1657.
He also worked on the construction of accurate
clocks, suitable for naval
navigation. In 1658 he published a book on this topic called
Horologium. In fact his invention on Christmas 1656, the
pendulum clock (patented 1657), was a breakthrough in timekeeping. Devices known as
escapements regulate the rate of a
watch or
clock, and the anchor escapement represented a major step in the development of accurate watches. Subsequent to this publication, Huygens discovered that the
cycloid was an
isochronous curve and, applied to pendulum clocks in the form of cycloidal cheeks guiding a flexible pendulum suspension, would ensure a regular (i.e isochronous) swing of the pendulum irrespective of its amplitude, for example irrespective of how it moved side to side. The mathematical and practical details of this finding were published in "Horologium Oscillatorium" of 1673. Huygens also observed that two pendulums mounted on the same beam will come to swing in perfectly opposite directions, an observation he referred to as
odd sympathy which in modern times is known as
resonance. Contrary to sometimes expressed popular belief Huygens wasn't a clockmaker, and isn't known to have ever made any clock himself; he was a scholar, scientist and inventor, and the oldest known pendulum clocks were made "under the privilege" -for example based on a license from Huygens- by
Salomon Coster in
The Hague. 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 also developed a
balance spring clock more or less contemporaneously with, though separately from,
Robert Hooke, and controversy over whose invention was the earlier persisted for centuries. In February 2006, a long-lost copy of Hooke's handwritten notes from several decades'
Royal Society meetings was discovered in a cupboard in Hampshire, and the balance-spring controversy appears by evidence contained in those notes to be settled in favor of Hooke's claim.
The
Royal Society elected Huygens a member in 1663. In the year 1666 Huygens moved to
Paris where he held a position at the
French Academy of Sciences under the patronage of
Louis XIV. Using the
Paris Observatory (completed in 1672) he made further
astronomical observations. In 1684 he published "Astroscopia Compendiaria" which presented his new aerial (tubeless) telescope.
Huygens speculated in detail about
life on other planets. In his book
Cosmotheoros, further entitled
The celestial worlds discover'd: or, conjectures concerning the inhabitants, plants and productions of the worlds in the planets (see
online edition
) he imagined a universe brimming with life, much of it very similar to life on 17th century Earth. The liberal climate in the Netherlands of that time not only allowed but encouraged such speculation. In sharp contrast, philosopher
Giordano Bruno, who also believed in many inhabited worlds, was burned at the stake by the Italian authorities for his beliefs in 1600.
In 1673, Huygens carried out experiments with internal combustion. Although he designed a basic form of
internal combustion engine, fueled by gunpowder, he never successfully built one.
In 1675, Christiaan Huygens
patented a
pocket watch. He also invented numerous other devices, including a 31 tone to the octave keyboard instrument which made use of his discovery of
31 equal temperament.
Huygens moved back to The Hague in 1681 after suffering serious illness. He attempted to return to France in 1685 but the revocation of the
Edict of Nantes precluded this move. Huygens died in The Hague on
July 8,
1695.
Named after Huygens
- The Huygens probe: The lander for the Saturnian moon Titan, part of the Cassini-Huygens Mission to Saturn
- Asteroid 2801 Huygens
- A crater on Mars
- Mons Huygens, a mountain on the Moon
- Huygens Software, a microscope image processing package.
- Achromatic two element eyepiece designed by him.
- The Huygens–Fresnel principle, a simple model to understand disturbances in wave propagation.
- Huygens wavelets, the fundamental mathematical basis for scalar diffraction theory
- W.I.S.V. Christiaan Huygens: Dutch study guild for the studies Mathemathics and Computer Science at the Delft University of Technology
- Huygens Laboratory: Home of the Physics department at Leiden University, The Netherlands
- Huygens Supercomputer: National Supercomputer facility of The Netherlands, located at SARA in Amsterdam
- The Huygens-building in Noordwijk, The 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.
- Christiaan Huygens College, High School located in Eindhoven, The Netherlands.
- The Christiaan Huygens, a ship of the Nederland Line.
Bibliography of Christiaan Huygens
This list of works by Christiaan Huygens is likely incomplete.
Christiani Hugenii Zuilichemii, dum viveret Zelhemii toparchae, opuscula posthuma ... (pub. 1728) » :Alternate title — Opera reliqua
:a work in the area of optics and physics
Horologium oscillatorium (German translation, pub. 1913) » :Alternate title — Die pendeluhr, Horologium oscillatorium, von Christiaan Huygens
:a work in the area of timepieces
Kosmotheeoros. (English translation of Latin, pub. 1698) » :Alternate title — Cosmotheoros.
:Alternate title — The celestial worlds discover'd: or, Conjectures concerning the inhabitants, plants and productions of the worlds in the planets. » :a work relating theories of life on other worlds
Traitbe de la lumiaere (English translation, pub. 1912 and again in 1962) » :Alternate title — Treatise on light.
:a work in the area of optics and physics
==
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