Christiaan Huygens

Christiaan Huygens (1629–1695) was a Dutch mathematician, astronomer and physicist, born in The Hague, the son of Constantijn Huygens, adviser to the House of Orange. He studied law and mathematics at Leiden. Grinding lenses with his brother, he built powerful telescopes, discovered Saturn's largest moon, Titan, in 1655 and explained its appearance as a thin flat ring.

In 1657 he patented the pendulum clock. His Horologium Oscillatorium of 1673 laid the foundations of dynamics, and his Traité de la Lumière of 1690 set out the wave theory of light.