Christiaan Huygens
1629 – 1695
Pendulum clocks, wave optics, and centripetal force.
A Dutch polymath, Huygens invented the pendulum clock in 1656, worked out centripetal force, proposed the wave theory of light, and discovered Titan and Saturn's rings — the leading scientist of his generation between Galileo and Newton.
The pendulum and oscillation tools here descend from his timekeeping work; his wave optics underlies the RF-propagation reasoning as well.
Portrait: a stylized blueprint-line rendering, not a photograph.
Contributions in the toolbox
- 1656
Pendulum clock — timekeeping improves a hundredfold.
→ Pendulum Period - 1673
Compound pendulum solved — rotational inertia in practice.
→ Mass Moment of Inertia (Shapes)