Huygens’ principle
Christian was a contemporary of Isaac Newton (1642-1726/27), who proposed what is now known as Huygens’ principle, also called the Huygens-Fresnel (1788-1827) principle, which competed for supremacy with Newton’s corpuscular theory. Huygens proposed that in the context of wave propagation, all points of a wavefront in a transmitting medium may be regarded as new sources of wavelets that expand in every direction at a rate depending on their velocities. This was contrary to Newton’s theory, which explained wave phenomena using the idea that waves consisted of particles.
It was stated after the wave theory of Huygens gained supremacy over Newton’s corpuscular theory that only a fool or a genius would raise the particle theory from the ashes, and this genius was none other than Albert Einstein (1879-1955) who used the particle theory of light to explain the photoelectric effect, and for this theory, Albert was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1921 (and not for Relativity).
Contributions in Mathematics
Huygens was also instrumental in inventing games reliant on the theory of probability. As is perhaps well known, the embryonic form of the theory of probability commenced with giants such as Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) and Pierre de Fermat (1607-1665).
A slight digression here it is well known that Fermat’s last theorem was arguably the most influential mathematical proof of the ages not for what is demonstrated but how it influenced Mathematicians to question and prove other Mathematics in order to arrive at the solution which was presented to the Mathematics community by Andrew Wiles (1953-) in 1994 (the corrected version) but Fermat also anticipated the work of Descartes (1596-1650) in what we today call Cartesian coordinates and he (Fermat) also gave us the principle of least time that my good friend R. P Feynman (1918-1988) used in arriving at his theory of quantum electrodynamics. In fact, a beautiful proof of the Snell-Descartes law of refraction can be demonstrated using this principle.
Hidden Giant in Physics and Probability Theory
Returning to Huygens, he has been called the first theoretical Physicist and the Mathematician/Physicist who influenced the great Jacob Bernoulli (1655-1705) to develop advanced probability theory which gave us the law of large numbers on which all probability theory depends. I could easily drift off here and discuss the Bernoullis (Daniel (1700-1782), for example), who gave us the equation that allowed mankind to realize that flight is possible but that would be for another post. Christian beat Newton to many laws of mechanics, including the laws of elastic collisions (including the notion of conservation of linear momentum and the idea of the modulus of elasticity) as well as the explanation of the centrifugal force that is often attributed to Newton, especially with his (Newton’s) application to the motion of celestial bodies.
Regrettably, once again, I have run out of space trying to pay homage to my “old friend”, until next time.
