Willebrord van roijen snell biography wikipedia

Quick Info Born 13 June Leiden, Netherlands Died 30 October Leiden, Netherlands Summary Willebrord Snell was a Dutch mathematician who is best known for the law of refraction, a basis of modern geometric optics; but this only become known after his death when Huygens published it. View four larger pictures. It is also commonly given as Willebrordus Snellius , the Latin version of Willebrord Snell, which he used for all his publications.

His father was Rudolph Snell - , the professor of mathematics at Leiden, and his mother was Machteld Cornelisdochter from an leading family from Oudewater. Willebrord, the eldest of his parents' three children, was named after his paternal grandfather.

Snell's law velocity

His two younger brothers were Jacob who died in aged 16 and Hendrik who died in childhood. Let us make a comment on Willebrord's date of birth. Some biographies of Snell give as the year of his birth but this is simply an error copied from an old biography. Others give the year as or but claim that his date of birth is unknown. In fact no record of his birth exists but his date of birth can be deduced with a fair degree of certainty from a letter his father wrote on his son's birthday.

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