Huygens

American  

[hahy-guhnz, hoi-, hoi-gens] / ˈhaɪ gənz, ˈhɔɪ-, ˈhɔɪ gɛns /

Or Huyghens

noun

1. Christian 1629–95, Dutch mathematician, physicist, and astronomer.

---

Huygens British  

/ ˈhœixəns, ˈhaɪɡənz /

noun

1. Christiaan (ˈkristiːˌaːn). 1629–95, Dutch physicist: first formulated the wave theory of light

---

Huygens Scientific  

/ hī′gənz,hoi′gĕns /

1. Dutch physicist and astronomer who in 1655 discovered Saturn's rings and its fourth satellite, using a telescope he constructed with his brother. In 1657 he built the first pendulum clock. Huygens also proposed that light consists of transverse waves that vibrate up and down perpendicular to the direction in which the light travels. This theory, which explained some properties of light better than Newton's theory, was made public in 1690.

---

Example Sentences

In the 17th century, astronomers Christiaan Huygens and Giovanni Cassini pointed some of the earliest telescopes at Saturn and made a surprising discovery.

From Science Daily • Nov. 18, 2025

"This archive contains important stories for both present and future generations," the Huygens Institute says.

From BBC • Jan. 2, 2025

Isaac Newton concluded that light consists of particles in 1672; Christiaan Huygens developed his wave theory of light six years later.

From Scientific American • Jul. 27, 2023

After some time, Turchin notes, they "all start swinging together in perfect synchrony," as first observed by Dutch scholar Christiaan Huygens in 1665.

From Salon • Jul. 2, 2023

This idea was taken up by Denis Papin, a medical doctor who had started his scientific career as an assistant to Huygens, performing air-pump experiments.

From "The Invention of Science" by David Wootton