Portrait of Christian Huygens
SPL/Photo Researchers

Christian Huygens

Christian Huygens was a Dutch physicist and astronomer who lived between 1629-1695. He found new methods for grinding and polishing lenses, making telescopes more powerful. Using a telescope he had made, Huygens first identified Saturn's rings and one of Saturn's moons.

Huygens also invented the pendulum clock, increasing the accuracy of timekeeping, and proposed the wave theory of light.


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