Christiaan Huygens and Pendulum Clocks

Abstract

We have told how Galileo laid the foundation for classical mechanics almost at the beginning of the 17th century. Christiaan Huygens (1629--1695) was Galileo's immediate scientific successor. In Lagrange's words, Huygens ``was destined to improve and develop most of Galileo's important discoveries.''2 There is a story about how Huygens, at age 17, first came into contact with Galileo's ideas: He planned to prove that a projectile moves horizontally along a parabola after launch, but discovered a proof in Galileo's book and did not want ``to write the Iliad after Homer.'' It is striking how close Huygens and Galileo were in scientific spirit and interests.