Christiaan Huygens and Pendulum Clocks

Abstract

We have told how Galileo laid the foundation for classical mechanics almost at the beginning of the 17th century. Christiaan Huygens (1629–1695) was Galileo’s immediate scientific successor. In Lagrange’s words, Huygens “was destined to improve and develop most of Galileo’s important discoveries.”2 There is a story about how Huygens, at age 17, first came into contact with Galileo’s ideas: He planned to prove that a projectile moves horizontally along a parabola after launch, but discovered a proof in Galileo’s book and did not want “to write the Iliad after Homer.” It is striking how close Huygens and Galileo were in scientific spirit and interests.