 |
EncyclopediaHuygens, ChristiaanHuygens, Christiaan (kris'tyän hoi'guns) [key], 1629–95, Dutch mathematician and physicist; son of Constantijn Huygens. He improved telescopic lenses and discovered (1655) a satellite of Saturn and studied the rings of Saturn. His findings were described in his Systema Saturnium (1659). He was the first to use the pendulum in clocks. He developed a wave theory of light opposed to the corpuscular theory of Newton and formulated Huygens's principle, which holds that, concerning light waves, every point on a wave front is itself a source of new waves. In 1678 he discovered the polarization of light by double refraction in calcite. His chief work is Horologium oscillatorium (1673). See his Oeuvres complètes (22 vol. in 23, 1888–1950); study by A. E. Bell (1947); A. Elzinga, On a Research Program in Early Modern Physics (1972). The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2007, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. More on Christiaan Huygens from Infoplease:
- Huygens: meaning and definitions - Huygens: Definition and Pronunciation
- Saturn's Moons - Saturn's Moons Titan Cassini-Huygens Saturn has 56 known moons, nine of which were announced in ...
- Constantijn Huygens - Huygens, Constantijn Huygens, Constantijn , 1596–1687, Dutch humanist and poet, b. The Hague; ...
- Pendulum Clocks - Pendulum Clocks In 1656, Christiaan Huygens, a Dutch scientist, made the first pendulum clock, ...
- Cassini-Huygens (U.S., the European Space Agency, and the Italian Space Agency) - Cassini-Huygens (U.S., the European Space Agency, and the Italian Space Agency) Destination: ...
|
|
