DUTCH LIGHT

Enchanting to the point of escapism Simon Ings Spectator Hugh Aldersey Williams rescues his subject from Newton s shadow where he was been unjustly confined for over three hundred years Literary Review Filled with incident discovery and revelation Dutch Light is a vivid account of Christiaan Huygens s remarkable life and career but it is also nothing less than the story of the birth of modern science as we know it Europe s greatest scientist during the latter half of the seventeenth century Christiaan Huygens was a true polymath A towering figure in the fields of astronomy optics mechanics and mathematics many of his innovations in methodology optics and timekeeping remain in use to this day Among his many achievements he developed the theory of light travelling as a wave invented the mechanism for the pendulum clock and discovered the rings of Saturn via a telescope that he had also invented A man of fashion and culture Christiaan came from a family of multi talented individuals whose circle included not only leading figures of Dutch society but also artists and philosophers such as Rembrandt Locke and Descartes The Huygens family and their contemporaries would become key actors in the Dutch Golden Age a time of unprecedented intelle