{"product_id":"9781509893331-dutch-light","title":"Dutch Light","description":"\u003cmeta content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\" http-equiv=\"Content-Type\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eChristiaan Huygens and the Making of Science in Europe\u003cbr\u003eHugh Aldersey-Williams transports us to the Dutch Golden Age – a time of immense scientific and artistic innovation - in this histo-biography of Christiaan Huygens, one of Europe's leading, yet unsung, thinkers.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e'At last – a scintillating biography of Christiaan Huygens . Hugh Aldersley-Williams has evocatively illuminated this brilliant polymath who laid the foundations of modern European science.' \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eDr Patricia Fara, Emeritus Fellow of Clare College, Cambridge\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e'Fascinating . an impressive piece of scholarship. I learned a lot.'\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eJohn Gribbin, author of \u003ci\u003eSix Impossible Things\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eIn Search of Schrödinger's Cat\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFilled with incident, discovery, and revelation, \u003ci\u003eDutch Light\u003c\/i\u003e is a vivid account of Christiaan Huygens’s remarkable life and career, but it is also nothing less than the story of the birth of modern science as we know it.  \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEurope’s greatest scientist during the latter half of the seventeenth century, Christiaan Huygens was a true polymath.  A towering figure in the fields of astronomy, optics, mechanics, and mathematics, many of his innovations in methodology, optics and timekeeping remain in use to this day. Among his many achievements, he developed the theory of light travelling as a wave, invented the mechanism for the pendulum clock, and discovered the rings of Saturn – via a telescope that he had also invented.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA man of fashion and culture, Christiaan came from a family of multi-talented individuals whose circle included not only leading figures of Dutch society, but also artists and philosophers such as Rembrandt, Locke and Descartes. The Huygens family and their contemporaries would become key actors in the Dutch Golden Age, a time of unprecedented intellectual expansion within the Netherlands. Set against a backdrop of worldwide religious and political turmoil, this febrile period was defined by danger, luxury and leisure, but also curiosity, purpose, and tremendous possibility.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFollowing in Huygens’s footsteps as he navigates this era while shuttling opportunistically between countries and scientific disciplines, Hugh Aldersey-Williams builds a compelling case to reclaim Huygens from the margins of history and acknowledge him as one of our most important and influential scientific figures.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Rarewaves","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":41696386613345,"sku":"9781509893331","price":19.09,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0092\/7504\/8033\/files\/stand_32665347.jpg?v=1745822098","url":"https:\/\/www.rarewaves.com\/products\/9781509893331-dutch-light","provider":"Rarewaves.com","version":"1.0","type":"link"}