Huygens

or Huy·ghens

[ hahy-guhnz, hoi-; Dutch hoi-gens ]

noun

1. Chris·tian [kris, -ch, uh, n, kris, -tee-ahn], 1629–95, Dutch mathematician, physicist, and astronomer.

Huygens

/ ˈhœixəns; ˈhaɪɡənz /

noun

1. HuygensChristiaan16291695MDutchSCIENCE: physicist Christiaan (ˈkristiːˌaːn). 1629–95, Dutch physicist: first formulated the wave theory of light

Huygens

/ hī′gənz,hoi′gĕns /

1. Dutch physicist and astronomer who in 1655 discovered Saturn's rings and its fourth satellite, using a telescope he constructed with his brother. In 1657 he built the first pendulum clock. Huygens also proposed that light consists of transverse waves that vibrate up and down perpendicular to the direction in which the light travels. This theory, which explained some properties of light better than Newton's theory, was made public in 1690.

Example Sentences

Isaac Newton concluded that light consists of particles in 1672; Christiaan Huygens developed his wave theory of light six years later.

From Scientific American

After some time, Turchin notes, they "all start swinging together in perfect synchrony," as first observed by Dutch scholar Christiaan Huygens in 1665.

From Salon

With the instruments, Huygens studied Saturn’s rings and discovered its moon Titan.

From Science Magazine

In the meantime, however, despite observations by Voyager 1 in 1980 and the Cassini Saturn orbiter and its Huygens lander in 2004-5, planetary scientists’ models of Titan’s atmospheric dynamics were still only tentative.

From New York Times

ESA has RHUs leftover from its Huygens Probe, which dropped to the surface of Titan in 2005, but they have a lower power output than the Russian ones.

From Science Magazine