Christiaan Huygens: biography of this 17th century Dutch astronomer

Modern astronomy would not be understood without the contributions of the great authors of the past, and Huygens is one of them.

We will dedicate this article to better understand his life through a biography of Christiaan Huygens, from his childhood and training to the great milestones of his career as a scientist. Likewise, we will discover some of the contributions that this author made during his many years as a scientist.

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Brief biography of Christiaan Huygens

Christiaan Huygens was born in the year 1629 in The Hague, at that time belonging to the Dutch Republic.. As the son of a wealthy family, he did not experience any financial difficulties throughout his childhood. His father was an important diplomat, under the orders of the Dutch monarchy. In addition, he also cultivated different arts, such as writing and music. He was associated with some of the greatest intellectuals of the time.

Among his close circle were historical figures such as René Descartes, Galileo Galilei or Marin Mersenne, a sample of the distinguished and scholarly atmosphere that reigned in the house of Christiaan Huygens. As for his mother, a famous poetess, he had five children, Christiaan being the second, and died as a result of complications during the delivery of his last daughter.

The education of little Christiaan Huygens, until he was sixteen years old, took place in his house. Constantinj, his father, ensured that he received an exquisite education, liberal in nature., which included learning different languages, mathematics, history, arts, and some branches of philosophy, such as logic and rhetoric. Likewise, his physical aptitudes were not neglected, so he also rode horses, practiced fencing, and also danced.

Some of Christiaan Huygens' tutors were Descartes himself, who was surprised at the ease with which the student he understood the complex concepts of geometry, and so did Jan Jansz de Jonge Stampioen, one of the most brilliant mathematicians dutch.

Starting at the age of sixteen, his training continued at the University of Leiden, where he learned mathematics and law.. The mathematician Frans van Schooten was one of Christiaan Huygens' tutors. At the age of two he transferred to the Orange College in Breda to complete his law studies.

Youth and career as a scientist

After finishing his training, he carried out diplomatic work for the Duke of Nassau, Louis Henry, which allowed him to travel through different northern European regions. However, he was not destined to continue in his father's footsteps as a diplomat. What Christian really liked was science. This was attested by Mersenne, who told his father that the boy had the talent of Archimedes himself for mathematics.

Christiaan Huygens corresponded as Mersenne to work together on different mathematical problems, such as those concerning the creation of suspension bridges or the squaring of the circle. Mersenne had proposed other objects of study that, at the time, were not of interest to Huygens, but would be in the future. Some examples are the vibrating string, the cycloid or the gravitational constant.

By the year 1654, Christiaan decided to return to his family home, in The Hague, in order to devote himself completely to the study of science.. Despite the fact that Mersenne had already passed away, Christiaan Huygens continued to correspond with other authors related to it, although the wars suffered by this territory at that time made it difficult at times to receive letters.

In 1655 he decided to travel to Paris to meet some of these authors, such as Ismael Boulliau or Claude Mylon. This allowed him to establish contact, first with Pierre de Carcavi and then with Pierre de Fermat, one of the most brilliant mathematicians in history. However, they did not come to great meeting points, since Fermat was focused on theoretical issues and Huygens was looking for more practical applications in his studies.

At last, In the year 1651, Christiaan Huygens published what would be his first work, quadrature theorema. Thanks to this publication and the correction of some errors in the work of Thomas Hobbes, Huygens became a household name in all scientific circles in Europe.

Interest in astronomy and other sciences

Christiaan then began to be interested in the optics of spherical lenses, and this study ended up materializing in the so-called Huygenian eyepiece. This subject put him in contact with another of the great minds of his time: Baruch Spinoza. Likewise, he was very interested in the contributions to this field of Antoni van Leeuwenhoek, another Dutch scientist who also studied and created lenses.

Another topic that attracted the interest of Christiaan Huygens was that of probability.. His work De ratiociniis in ludo aleae focuses on the probabilistic explanations behind the most popular games of chance. In creating this volume, he was influenced by the work of other authors such as Girard Desargues and Blaise Pascal. Likewise, he worked on the work of John Graunt, father of demography, to mathematically capture life expectancy.

In the year 1661 the astronomical phenomenon of the solar transit of Mercury took place. Christiaan Huygens witnessed this event and debated with other authors about it. Also at that time, Huygens He came to publish some articles related to music, a discipline in which he also excelled, especially playing the harpsichord..

The circle of authors formerly directed by Mesenne, was renamed the Montmor Academy, because it was directed by Henri Louis Habert de Montmor. Christiaan Huygens was one of its most active members, and he supported a schism created in this association in which experimental demonstration was sought in the sciences they practiced. This discussion led to the closure of the group.

However, his participation in the circle made him change his residence to Paris, which earned him access to the French Academy of Sciences. He had the patronage of Jean-Baptiste Colbert. At the same time, he also belonged to the London Royal Society, which demonstrates the enormous importance that this author already had internationally.

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great contributions

In his facet as an inventor, he studied how to create an engine based on the explosion of gunpowder., which although it failed to materialize as a reality, was undoubtedly an enormous innovation for the time. Christiaan Huygens also excelled in the design and construction of complex clocks, especially those with pendulums, which guaranteed great precision.

Regarding the field of astronomy, one of his great contributions was the study of the rings of Saturn as well as one of its moons, Titan. He was also able to make observations of the Orion Nebula. As for Mars, he was able to map some of its regions, such as the Syrtis Major plain, on the red planet.

Also he was able to calculate the duration of the rotation movement of this planet, that is to say, what a day lasts, which he encrypted in 24 hours and 30 minutes, erring only for the seven minutes more than it actually has. As ahead of his time, Christiaan Huygens even wrote about the possibility of life on Earth. other places in the universe, a controversial issue due to its impact on the prevailing religious beliefs in times past.

For Huygens, this possibility did not pose a problem with regard to the scriptures of the Bible, since he affirmed that in said text it was not affirmed but neither was it stated. he denied that option, and that if it were the case, God would have placed us at a sufficient distance so that we could not come into contact with each other. Although he had a scientific mentality, it is observed that he tried to adapt his reasoning to religious theses.

Christiaan Huygens too he studied different stars and even made calculations about the distance and luminosity of some of them, like Sirius, although they were not precise, since this discipline would still need many years to reach its maturity.

He is also considered the first of the theoretical physicists and also the main promoter of what would later be mathematical physics as we know it today.

Last years

During his years living in Paris, Christiaan Huygens met Gottfried Leibniz, with whom he also began to correspond and tutored him in mathematical and geometric matters. Leibniz was working on a system of infinitesimal calculus, but Huygens didn't seem to appreciate it.

In 1681, afflicted with a severe depression, he decided to return to his hometown, The Hague. He visited London shortly after, where he was able to meet Isaac Newton, one of the greatest physicists in the history of mankind.

Christiaan Huygens ended his days in The Hague, without having raised a family, in the year 1695. His body rests in an unmarked grave in Saint James's Church.

Bibliographic references:

• Dijksterhuis, F.J. (2004). Lenses and waves: Christiaan Huygens and the mathematical science of optics in the seventeenth century. Kluwer Academic Publishers.
• Louwmann, P. (2004). Christiaan Huygens and his telescopes. Titan-From Discovery to Encounter.
• Snelders, H.A.M. (1989). Christiaan Huygens and Newton's theory of gravitation. Notes and Records. The Royal Society Journal of the History of Science.
• Yoder, J.G. (2004). Unrolling time: Christiaan Huygens and the mathematization of nature. Cambridge.