Christiaan Huygens

Christiaan Huygens was a 17th-century Dutch mathematician and physicist known for his contributions to optics and mechanics. He proposed the wave theory of light, suggesting that light travels in waves rather than as particles, which advanced our understanding of phenomena like reflection and refraction. Huygens also established the principle of superposition, explaining how overlapping waves interact. In mechanics, he formulated the laws of motion and made early contributions to the study of pendulums and circular motion. His work laid foundational concepts in both geometrical and physical optics and significantly influenced astronomy and the sciences that followed.