In this episode of Travels Through Time the author and journalist Hugh Aldersey-Williams takes us back to 1655 and the vibrant heart of the Dutch Golden Age to meet Christiaan Huygens, a figure oddly forgotten by us today but who was once venerated as the greatest mathematician, astronomer and physicist of his age.
Hugh guides us back to the year 1655 to see Christiaan make his thrilling discovery of one of Saturn's moons; to watch him struggle with the mathematical problem of pendular motion, and to follow him as he enters Paris - the city he would come to love - for the very first time.
Much much more about the scenes, characters and materials discussed in this conversation can be found at www.tttpodcast.com
The discussion in this episode of Travels Through Time arises from the characters and events described by Hugh Aldersey-Williams in his new book, Dutch Light: Christiaan Huygens and the making of science in Europe which is recently published in hardback by Picador
Show notesScene One: 25 March 1655. With Christiaan and his telescope in the garden of the Huygens’s house in The Hague. The discovery of Saturn’s moon later to be called Titan.
Scene Two: 4 March 1655, Huygens recommends a Polish inventor’s clock for Dutch patent, demonstrating that he is already thinking about the problem of pendular motion.
Scene Three: 23 July 1655, Huygens arrives in Paris - the city that he would grow to love - for the very first time
Memento: One of Huygens’s magic lanterns
PeoplePresenter: Peter Moore
Guest: Hugh Aldersey-Williams
Production: Maria Nolan
Podcast partner: Colorgraph
Follow us on Twitter: @tttpodcast_
See where 1655 fits on our Timeline
John Darlington: The Port Royal Earthquake (1692)
Katja Hoyer: Beyond The Wall (1973)
Company of Heroes 3: David Milne (1942-4)
Sarah Bakewell: Petrarch and Boccaccio (1348*)
Nandini Das: The first English embassy to India (1616)
[From the archives] Ariana Neumann: When Time Stopped (1944)
Nicholas Spencer: The Great Debate (1860)
Christopher Hadley: Roman Roads and the Invasion of Britain (51 AD)
Don Hollway: The Year of Three Battles (1066)
[From the archives] Rebecca Wragg Sykes: Neanderthals (Eemian)
James Hall: Michelangelo and Leonardo in Florence (1504)
Tania Branigan: Mao and the Cultural Revolution (1966)
Marion Turner: The Wife of Bath (1397)
John Sellars: Aristotle (347 BC)
Simon Akam: The Changing of the Guard (2006)
[From the archives] Diarmaid MacCulloch: Thomas Cromwell (1536)
Tim Clayton: James Gillray and a Revolution in Satire (1792)
Harry Sidebottom: The Mad Emperor (218)
Josiah Osgood: Caesar, Cato and the Fall of the Roman Republic (46BC)
Philip Mansel: Louis XIV, The Sun King (1700)
Join Podbean Ads Marketplace and connect with engaged listeners.
Advertise Today
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
Irish Songs with Ken Murray
History Obscura
Historycal: Words that Shaped the World
The Rest Is History
Lore