Talk:Christiaan Huygens
|
|
In case anyone else was wondering, here is a page and audio clip describing how to pronounce Huygens' name (http://frank.harvard.edu/~paulh/misc/huygens.htm).
Excised rubbish:
- He discovered and proved mathematically that the oscillation-time (or frequency) of a pendulum depends solely on its length, independent of the angle of swing. The popular notion up to then had held that the larger the swing, the longer the oscillation-time.
It is Galileo that is credited with finding that pendula have (almost) constant period; Huygens quantised the tiny dependency on amplitude and suggested a means of correcting it. (I believe it was a buffered ribbon suspension, but check his book to be sure. For the typical idealisation the bob must trace a cycloid -- see tautochrone -- and the buffers are the evolute, another cycloid.) It's of mostly theoretical interest because serious pendulum clocks are contrived to keep a small and constant amplitude, and real pendula are hardly the easily-analysed ideal; their bobs rotate, their suspensions are stiff and stretchy...
Huygens' most lasting contribution to horology may be a pulley arrangement used to maintain torque during winding. Kwantus 19:35, 2005 Feb 20 (UTC)
- D'oh. I forgot the coilspring-and-balancewheel oscillator. Kwantus 22:52, 2005 Feb 22 (UTC)
I've replaced the color portrait with one that is known to be public domain. The old one was way better, though. If anyone can find out the relevant legal information (and maybe locate a better reproduction), it would be great to have the color one.--Bcrowell 03:46, 21 May 2005 (UTC)