Christiaan Huygens
Christiaan Huygens, born in The Hague in 1629, was a brilliant mathematician, physicist, and astronomer. He discovered Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, and correctly explained the planet’s rings. His invention of the pendulum clock in 1656 transformed timekeeping, remaining the most accurate device for nearly 300 years. Huygens advanced mechanics by formulating laws of centrifugal force and elastic collisions, anticipating Newtonian physics. In optics, his Traité de la Lumière (1690) introduced the wave theory of light, later refined into the Huygens–Fresnel principle. He also improved telescopes and devised the Huygens eyepiece. A founding member of the French Academy of Sciences, he died in 1695.
We know nothing very certainly, but everything only probably
