Christiaan Huygens

Christiaan Huygens, also spelled Huyghens, was a Dutch physicist, mathematician, astronomer and inventor, who is widely regarded as one of the greatest scientists of all time and a major figure in the scientific revolution. In physics, Huygens made groundbreaking contributions in optics and mechanics, while as an astronomer he is chiefly known for his studies of the rings of Saturn and the discovery of its moon Titan. As an inventor, he improved the design of the telescope with the invention of the Huygenian eyepiece. His most famous invention, however, was the pendulum clock in 1656, which was a breakthrough in timekeeping and became the most accurate timekeeper for almost 300 years. Huygens was an outstanding mathematician and, because he was the first scientist of the modern era to transfer mathematical inquiry to describe unobservable physical phenomena, he has been called the first theoretical physicist and the founder of modern mathematical physics.