Huygens Serenade

14th April 1629 - 8th July 1695

Christiaan Huygens was born into an important diplomatic family in Holland. His father was a thinker and student of Philosophy himself, and new a great deal of influential people. Christiaan was taught at home, particularly in mathematics and geometry. Later he studied Law at Leiden University and later law and mathematics at the College of Orange at Breda.

• He started to publish mathemetical papers in 1651
• He studied Lens grinding for telescopes in 1654 and improved grinding and polishing
• Descovered the first moon of Saturn in 1655 using one of his own lenses and published a work on calculating Probabilities, after learning of the work of Pascal and Fermat on a visit to Paris
• In 1656 he descovered the true shape of the Saturn rings, and spent much of the rest of the year convincing other influential astronomers, 3 years later he was able to confirm the shapes and phases of the rings
• Also in 1656 he patented the first pendulum clock
• In 1662 his large arc pendulum clocks underwent sea trials
• In 1663 he was elected to the Royal Society of London
• In 1673 he described the theory of pendulum motion, and derived the law of centrifugal motion
• Leading onto formulating the inverse-square law of gravitational attraction, with Hooke, Halley and Wren
• In his final years he published discussions and thoughts about Extraterrestrial life
• He described the 31 tone equal temperament musical scale, which led on to a tradition of 31 tone music in the Netherlands

He was one of the most influential, and critical  scientists of the seventeenth century
His work with mass, weight, momentum and force were finally clarified in his treatment of the phenomena of impact, centripetal force and the first dynamical system ever studied - the compound pendulum

New Picture October 2004 This tiled mural celebrating Huygens is above "Cynthia" shoeshop on Liedestraat, Amsterdam. It took 3 trips to the city to finally locate it. I eventually found it in Liedestraat, to the west of the southern canal belt, opposite the Tourist information office. It isn't a well known picture because none of the locals I spoke to could point us to it, although some of them had seen it but couldn't remember where.

And finally, the theme tune from Hinge and Bracket, was written in tribute to the great man, originally called Huygens Serenade, Often called Starlight Serenade, it is a piece written using no more than 31 regulated tones, and played with pendulum regulated clockwork timing