Christiaan Huygens

Christiaan Huygens (1629 to 1695) was a Dutch mathematician, physicist, engineer, astronomer and inventor, a key figure of the Scientific Revolution who invented and patented the pendulum clock in 1657. His page in the Energy Atlas rests on one engineering project that did not bear fruit directly: the gunpowder engine, a precursor of the internal combustion engine that used gunpowder as its fuel. He liked to play with miniature mills and other machines from a young age and was later a Fellow of the Royal Society. His work on mechanics included the correct laws of elastic collision and a formula for centrifugal force, but the engine is his link to the history of energy.