Turning to the natural sciencesĭrawing of Saturn, made by Christiaan Huygens. Examining the answers to the five questions at the conclusion of his book suggests that he was conversant with Pascal’s theories but unfamiliar with Fermat’s combinatorial techniques. This was preceded by correspondence between Blaise Pascal and Pierre de Fermat, the contents of which, however, Huygens claimed to know nothing about. One of the earliest works on probability theory, De ludo aleae (Dice Theory) was published under his name in 1657. In addition, he tackled the π (pi), worked on logarithms, and laid the groundwork for the infinitesimal calculus, which was later developed by Gottfried Leibniz and Isaac Newton. In 1651, he published his first paper on the squaring of cones in which he demonstrated a flaw in a supposed proof of the squaring of the circle. Later, he attended the University of Leiden to study law, but he quickly shifted his focus to the “hard sciences” instead. Throughout Christiaan’s childhood, he received instruction from his father. Christiaan’s early exposure to famous people like Rembrandt, Peter Paul Rubens, and René Descartes was made possible by his father’s extensive network. Huygens was born the son of Constantijn Huygens, who was a linguist, diplomat, composer, and the leading poet in Holland at the time.
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