I saw him holding the telescope in his hands, adjusting it from time to time, and observing the target in the night sky with rapt attention.
"ah! I saw Saturn's moons! " He suddenly screamed. Others thought that something had happened to him and rushed to his observation room, but as soon as they entered the door, they saw that he was safe and sound. He danced like a child and told everyone that he had seen Saturn's moons. Suddenly, everyone ran to his telescope to watch. Sure enough, Saturn's moons came into view. Everyone can't help cheering in unison.
This satellite was later called Titan. The middle-aged man who first observed Titan was Huygens, a famous physicist, astronomer and mathematician.
Huygens was born in The Hague, the Netherlands, on April 1629. His father is a diplomat and a famous law professor. He attaches great importance to children's education. He had hoped that Huygens would inherit his career and become a decisive jurist when he grew up, so he hired a tutor to give Huygens legal education.
However, the clever Huygens is not interested in boring legal provisions. He often uses his spare time to describe various imaginary mechanical figures, and sometimes he makes his own models.
One day, the teacher happened to see the model made by Huygens, the youngest student in the class. He was very angry and scolded, "How can you waste your time on these useless things?" I have to tell your father. "
After that, the teacher immediately showed the model to Huygens' father and asked him to blame Huygens. Unexpectedly, after seeing the model, my father did some processing. Instead, he praised, "Well done. I didn't expect my son to have such a genius. " Teachers should teach children according to their temperament, and can't force them to learn things they are not interested in! "
Because Huygens has such an enlightened father, he has received a good family education since he was a child. He entered school very early and was able to develop freely according to his own interests and concentrate on reading his favorite science books.
/kloc-At the age of 0/6, Huygens was admitted to the famous Leiden University with excellent results, specializing in mathematics, astronomy and physics. Because he has laid a good foundation in science since he was a child, he has always been among the best in college.
65438-0647 transferred to Brayda University to study mathematics and law. 1655, huygens obtained the doctor of law degree.
After graduating from college, Huygens went abroad to Paris, France and London, England. Abroad, he met many famous experts and scholars at that time, including Newton and Leibniz, who founded calculus theory with him, which was undoubtedly very helpful for him to make achievements in science in the future.
After graduating from Huygens University, he soon published a mathematical book on quadratic equations, which attracted the attention of academic circles and became famous for a while.
Soon, Huygens devoted himself to the study of optics and found that light propagates in the form of waves. This great discovery established his position in academic circles. However, Huygens was not satisfied with this. He often encourages himself to say, "Now, I have become a minor celebrity. I must cherish this hard-won reputation and continue to work hard to discover more mysteries of the universe and nature. " Yes, it is because of his persistent pursuit that he has made many important scientific discoveries.
1655, Huygens observed Saturn with a small telescope designed by himself and found a halo around Saturn. Nine years later, Huygens discovered Saturn's sixth satellite, Titan, Saturn's largest satellite. These discoveries have made a big step forward in the study of Saturn.
In addition, Huygens has made great contributions to the study of nebulae. He was not only the first astronomer in the world to find a group of large nebulae under Orion's belt, but also found that these nebulae were surrounded by a bright light green fan nebula.
As we all know, astronomers observe and record the stars in the sky, which requires high accuracy of time. However, the clock in Huygens' era had low accuracy, and he was completely puzzled by this question.
One day, Huygens missed an opportunity to observe Saturn because of the time error. This caused him to think, and he couldn't help thinking, "Since no one can invent a more accurate clock, why don't I start developing it?"
Huygens did what he said. He racked his brains day and night, and finally designed a movable pendulum clock, which brought revolutionary progress to human clocks and watches. When it comes to Huygens' invention, we have to talk about the development of timers.
Before there were clocks and watches, people used a timing tool called "sunlight" or "ghost watch", which used the shadow of sunlight on objects to time, similar to the current sundial instrument.
The original Japanese laurel was made of clay, also called "soil laurel". Tugui has a kind of flat pottery plate called "Gui" with scales on it; A small bamboo pole or stick is inserted at one end of the clay board, which is called "table pole". On which scale the shadow of the watch rod falls, it means what time.
Later, someone made a rectangular sundial into a disc, divided the day into 12 hours, carved it on the disc, and later improved it to become a more accurate sundial instrument.
One disadvantage of the sundial instrument is that it can only be used in sunny days, but not at night, or in cloudy or rainy days. Therefore, people in some places use special candles, incense, leakage and so on to time. The simplest water leakage is just a pot or kettle filled with water. There is a gap in the inner wall and a small hole in the bottom to let the water leak out bit by bit, and then people can know the time from the height of the water surface. In addition, the leakage can also be timed by sand, which is called "hourglass". But someone must take care of it, and the finer it is, the higher the cost, so it is only used by palaces, government agencies, temples and so on. , and the average person can't install it; At the same time, the accuracy of leakage is not high, and it is not an ideal timing tool, so someone invented the mechanical clock.
The earliest mechanical clock was called "tower clock", which was invented successfully in about 13 century. This clock stands on a tall tower, and uses the power of a heavy hammer to drive the gear, which in turn drives the pointer to move, and uses the "escapement mechanism" to control the rotation speed of the gear to get more accurate time. But the clock driven by the heavy hammer can only be installed high on the tower, which is not suitable. So German Peter Henry invented the spring-driven clock in 1500. When Italian scientist Galileo discovered that an object was swinging, no matter how big the radian was, it always swung back and forth for the same time. Before long, he published his findings. A few years later, Huygens read Galileo's paper and couldn't help thinking:
"Since the swing of the object has isochronous characteristics, isn't it more accurate to use the power of the swing of the object to drive the gears in the clock to rotate?"
Huygens was very excited at this thought and immediately did the experiment with a timer. Failure, failure again ... He worked tirelessly and everything paid off. After a series of experiments, Huygens finally designed a pendulum mechanism to replace the balance wheel in the tower clock, and commissioned a watchmaker to successfully manufacture the first practical pendulum clock in 1656.
However, Huygens was not satisfied with the accuracy of the pendulum clock. He continued his research. Soon, he added a spring to the gear and improved it into what is now called a "balance wheel", so that the error of the pendulum clock does not exceed 2 minutes every day. The following year, Huygens obtained the patent right of pendulum clock and published the book Pendulum Clock.
Huygens became the first foreign member of the Royal Society of London in 1663 because of his outstanding contributions in physics, astronomy and mathematics. Huygens went to France at the invitation of Louis XIV in 1665. The following year, the Royal French Academy of Sciences was established and he was elected as an academician. The famous Huygens principle was put forward in France. Huygens principle is the core of light wave theory.
Huygens devoted himself to the research of natural science all his life and made outstanding achievements. He is loyal, humble and sincere. On the one hand, his achievements stem from his strong perseverance, his heroic spirit of persisting in scientific truth without fear of difficulties, setbacks and authority. On the other hand, it is inseparable from the education of his teachers and fathers, especially the influence and cultivation of Descartes' brilliant academic thoughts.
Learning point
Titan
Titan Titan is Saturn's largest moon. It was discovered by christiaan huygens, a Dutch physicist, astronomer and mathematician, on March 25th 1655. It is also the first satellite discovered in the solar system after Jupiter and Galileo. Because it is the only satellite in the solar system with a strong atmosphere, it is regarded as a time machine, which helps us understand the earliest situation of the earth and unveil the mystery of how life on earth was born.