Hevelius and Huygens,


On September 7th 1656, Hevelius calls his brilliant, younger colleague, Christiaan Huygens, in a letter as a “jewel to astronomy” and an “honoured friend”. He also presented the first copy of his dissertation on observations of the planet Saturn to Huygens. Huygens possessed almost all of Hevelius’s important publications, including “Selenographia” (1647), “Mercurius in sole vicus” (1662), “Prodromus cometicus” (1665), “Cometographia” (1668) and “Machina Coelestis” (1673), together with a commentary on the latter by the English inventor, Robert Hooke. Hevelius received visits from the French astronomer, Ismael Boulliau, the English astronomer, Edmund Halley, as well as from Huygens’s younger brother, Philips. Similar to Huygens, Hevelius received international recognition. Thus, he became a fellow of the English Royal Society of Sciences (1664) and of the French Académie des Sciences (1666).

Excerpt from: Johannes Hevelius: Machinae Coelestis Heavenly Machines: Chapter XVII: Concerning clocks (Dantzig, 1673)

At last, the construction of a pendulum which could move and count of its own accord was accomplished.

In the beginning, it was difficult to get the clockmaker to commence the work (as he was convinced that it be almost impossible to construct). However, once I had indicated that I was quite serious and mentioned my expenses, he commenced the work and was very happily successful, the result of which work was a clock with no balance, no spring, no fusee and the accompanying twisted cord or chain, but with only the pendulum, one weight and but a few cog-wheels.

The author presented the first pendulum clock to be made in Danzig to the king of Poland.

During the years that this particular clockmaker lived and worked at my house, he eventually produced two pendulum clocks of this type. The larger of the two had only two cog-wheels, the other four and used only one weight. I humbly presented the smaller of the two to the illustrious Casimir, king of Poland, who was then visiting Danzig and honoured my house with a visit. I then immediately ordered a new, very similar clock, excepting that the pendulum was slightly altered, and I kept this clock as a keepsake to remind me of this event.

Huygens, the famous clock designer, was the first person to publish an illustration of a pendulum clock.

Around this time, whilst the two pendulum clocks were being worked upon by the clockmaker but which were not completely finished (the clockmaker had little time available due to his work on the larger astronomic instruments), the very distinguished and very scholarly Christiaan Huygens invented similar clocks in 1657. This was also a very successful enterprise, and, a short time later, in 1658, he published an illustration of the pendulum clock, to the great advantage of (scientific) literature and for which I congratulate him. For, this prestigious invention offers an excellent remedy for all the ills of clocks built as yet, as well as solving the problems of inaccuracies which have crept into the escapements as well as the axles, pins and cog-wheels.