Christiaan Huygens

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Christiaan Huygens
Christiaan Huygens
Christiaan Huygens
Born 14 April 1629
The Hague, Netherlands
Died 8 July 1695 (aged 66)
Netherlands
Residence Netherlands, France
Nationality Dutch
Fields Physics
Mathematics
Astronomy
Horology
Institutions Royal Society of London
French Academy of Sciences
Alma mater University of Leiden
College of Orange
Doctoral advisor Frans van Schooten
John Pell
Known for Titan
Pendulum clock
Huygens–Fresnel principle
Wave theory
Influences René Descartes
Frans van Schooten
Influenced Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz

Christiaan Huygens (English pronunciation: /ˈhaɪɡənz/, Dutch: [ˈhœyɣəns]; 14 April 1629 – 8 July 1695) was a prominent Dutch mathematician, astronomer, physicist, and horologist. His work included early telescopic studies, investigations and inventions related to time keeping, and studies of both optics and centrifugal force.

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[edit] Life and work

Christiaan Huygens was born in April 1629 at The Hague, the second son of Constantijn Huygens, (1596–1687), a friend of mathematician and philosopher René Descartes, 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 Breda before turning to science.

Huygens achieved note for his argument that light consists of waves,[1] 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, Huygens proposed that Saturn was surrounded by a solid ring, "a thin, flat ring, nowhere touching, and inclined to the ecliptic." Using a 50 power refracting telescope that he designed himself, Huygens also discovered the first of Saturn's moons, Titan.[2] 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 also 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,[3] which he had 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. His invention of the pendulum clock, patented in 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, i.e. 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 was not a clockmaker, and is not known to have ever made any clock himself; he was a scholar, scientist and inventor, and the oldest known pendulum clocks were made by Salomon Coster in The Hague, under a license from Huygens.

The oldest known Huygens style pendulum clock is dated 1657 and can be seen at the Museum Boerhaave in Leiden[4][5][6][7], 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.[8][9]

On May 3, 1661, he observed planet Mercury transit over the Sun, using the telescope of telescope maker Richard Reeves in London together with astronomer Thomas Streete and Richard Reeves.[10]

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, 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 8 July 1695, and was buried in the Grote Kerk.

[edit] Named after Huygens

[edit] Selected works

  • Christiani Hugenii Zuilichemii, dum viveret Zelhemii toparchae, opuscula posthuma ... (pub. 1728)
Alternate title — Opera reliqua
a work in the area of optics and physics
a work in the area of timepieces

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ Christiaan Huygens, Traité de la lumiere (Leiden, Netherlands: Pieter van der Aa, 1690), Chapter 1. (Note: In the preface to his Traité, Huygens states that in 1678 he first communicated his book to the French Royal Academy of Sciences.)
  2. ^ Ron Baalke, Historical Background of Saturn's Rings
  3. ^ "I believe that we do not know anything for certain, but everything probably." —Christiaan Huygens, Letter to Pierre Perrault, 'Sur la préface de M. Perrault de son traité del'Origine des fontaines' [1763], Oeuvres Complétes de Christiaan Huygens (1897), Vol. 7, 298. Quoted in Jacques Roger, The Life Sciences in Eighteenth-Century French Thought, ed. Keith R. Benson and trans. Robert Ellrich (1997), 163. Quotation selected by W.F. Bynum and Roy Porter (eds., 2005), Oxford Dictionary of Scientific Quotations ISBN 0-19-858409-1 p. 317 quotation 4.
  4. ^ Hans van den Ende: "Huygens's Legacy, The Golden Age of the Pendulum Clock", Fromanteel Ldt., 2004,
  5. ^ van Kersen, Frits & van den Ende, Hans: Oppwindende Klokken - De Gouden Eeuw van het Slingeruurwerk 12 September - 29 November 2004 [Exhibition Catalog Paleis Het Loo]; Apeldoorn: Paleis Het Loo,2004
  6. ^ Hooijmaijers, Hans; Telling time - Devices for time measurement in museum Boerhaave - A Descriptive Catalogue; Leiden: Museum Boerhaave, 2005
  7. ^ No Author given; Chistiaan Huygens 1629-1695, Chapter 1: Slingeruurwerken; Leiden: Museum Boerhaave, 1988
  8. ^ nature - International Weekly Journal of Science, number 439, pages 638-639, 9 February 2006
  9. ^ Notes and Records of the Royal Society (2006) 60, pages 235-239, 'Report - The Return of the Hooke Folio' by Robyn Adams and Lisa Jardine
  10. ^ Peter Louwman, Christiaan Huygens and his telescopes, Proceedings of the International Conference from discovery to Encounter, 13 – 17 April 2004, ESTEC, Noordwijk, The Netherlands, ESA, sp 1278, Paris 2004

[edit] Further reading

[edit] External links

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