Christiaan Huygens (1629 - 1695)

Field(s) of interest: physics | mathematics | optics | astronomy
Gender: male

Born: Den Haag, 14-04-1629
Died: Den Haag, 08-07-1695

Biography:
Born in 1629, Huygens was the son of the poet and diplomat, Constantijn Huygens. He studied law in Leiden and Breda. He was interested mainly in mathematics and proved to be very talented early in life. With his brother Constantijn Jr., he ground lenses and made astronomical observations. He also developed a very accurate pendulum clock and established a wave-theory of light. His discoveries attracted attention abroad, and, in 1666, he was asked to lead the newly founded Académie des Sciences in Paris. After a few years absence caused by illness, he resigned from the Académie. Later in life he wrote a book on cosmolog, called 'Cosmotheoros'.

Collections: Museum Boerhaave Leiden; Universiteitsmuseum Utrecht; Noordelijk Scheepvaart Museum Groningen.

Occupations:
Instrument maker

Sources:
Riekher, R. Fernrohre und ihre Meister: eine Entwicklungsgeschichte der Fernrohrtechnik (Berlin 1957).

Traité de la lumière (1690)

Ahlström, O. Synverktyg fran äldre tider (Stockholm 1943).

Jorink, E. Reading the book of nature in the Dutch golden age, 1575-1715 (Leiden/Boston 2010).

Doorman, G. Octrooien voor uitvindingen in de Nederlanden uit de 16e-18e eeuw : met bespreking van enkele onderwerpen uit de geschiedenis der techniek (Den Haag 1940).

Zinner, E. Deutsche und Niederländische astronomische Instrumente des 11.-18. Jahrhunderts (München 1956).

Forbes, R.J. Cultuurgeschiedenis van wetenschap en techniek ('s Gravenhage 1966).

Nijland, A.A. Christiaan Huygens, in het bijzonder als astronoom (Groningen 1929).

Crommelin, C.A. Christiaan Huygens (Gent 1938).

Icke, V. De ruimte van Christiaan Huygens (Groningen 2009).

Daumas, M. Scientific instruments of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and their makers (London 1972).

Harting, P. ' De tien-voets kijker van Christiaan Huygens', in: Album der Natuur (1867).

Michel, H. Instruments des sciences dans l'art et l'histoire (Rhode-St-Genèse 1965).

Rooseboom, M. Bijdrage tot de geschiedenis der instrumentmakerskunst in de noordelijke Nederlanden (Leiden 1950).

Turner, G.L'E. 'Gerard Turner then spoke against the proposal that the telescope was known in Elizabethan times. There was no Elizabethan Telescope', in: Bulletin of the Scientific Instrument Society 37 (1993).

Cosmotheoros (1698)

BNW

De Saturni Luna observatio nova (1656)

Horologium oscillatorium sive de motu pendularium (1673)

Memoriën aengaende het slijpen van glasen tot verrekijckers (1685)

Systema saturnium (1659)

Theoremata de quadratura hyperboles, ellipsis et circuli (1651)

Gent, R.H. van. De tijdmeters van de Leidse Sterrewacht (Leiden 1992).