Willebrord Snell was born in 1580 in Leiden, Netherlands. Although
there is no record of his birth his birthday can be estimated based on a letter
his father, Rudolph Snell, wrote on his son's birthday. It's assumed he was
born on June 13th, 1580. His father was a mathematics professor at University
of Leiden and his mother, Machteld Cornelisdochter, came from Oudewater. He was
the eldest of three children, but his younger brothers, Jacob and Hendrik, both
died at a young age.
Willebrord went on to study law at University of Leiden, but
started teaching mathematics at Leiden later. He toured Europe before returning
to Leiden to prepare a Latin translation of Wisconstighe
Ghedachtenissen by Simon
Stevin. He also restored two books by Apollonius on plane loci that was
preserved by Pappus. In 1608, Snell received the degree for Master of Arts from
University of Leiden. He then married Maria De Lange, who was the daughter of a
burgomaster of Schoonhoven. They supposedly had eighteen children, but only
three of them survived to adulthood.
Upon Rudolph Snell's death in March 1613, Willebrord began
teaching in his place. He became a professor teaching mathematics, astronomy,
and optics. In 1613, Willebrord published Ramus Arithmetica with his own commentary. In 1615, he set his eyes on
determining the length of the meridian by using triangulation. Snell developed
the method so much that some argue he is rightfully the father of
triangulation. Snell used the distance between Leiden and Zoeterwoude as the
baseline and used the spires of churches closeby as reference points. His
results were published in Eratosthenes
batavus. He continued to work on making his results more accurate and
precise throughout his entire life, the rest of his findings were posted by one
of his students after Willebrord’s death. His final calculated value for the
length of a degree of the meridian was 69 miles, which is within a few hundred
meters of the currently accepted value.
Snell went on to discover the law of refraction. Scientists searched
for an explanation to why light rays appear bent when passing to denser medium.
Snell’s research identified the ratio of the sines of the angles of the
incident and refracted rays to the normal as the constant. Snell never
published these findings, but his manuscript was discovered by Isaacus Vossius
and Christiaan Huygens, who then noted it in their own works. René Descartes
presented the law without any proof in his 1637 publication, Dioptrique, which lead some to accuse
him of plagiarism. There is no evidence though. Snell supported the
Ptolemaic system whole-heartedly. He did observe the comet of 1618 and note it
was above the Moon, however.
Willebrord
Snell died in Leiden on October 30th, 1626 from colic. It caused a
fever and paralysis of his limbs.
Works Cited
O'Connor, J. J., and E. F. Robertson. "Willebrord Van Royen Snell." Snell Biography. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Sept. 2014. <http://www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/Biographies/Snell.html>.
"Snel (Snellius or Snel van Royen), Willebrord." Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography. Vol. 12. Detroit: Charles Scribner's Sons, 2008. 499-502. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 10 Sept. 2014. <http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CCX2830904066&v=2.1&u=fl_sarhs&it=r&p=GVRL&sw=w&asid=8bd327844e3d79defe085de8edae3c82>.
Norton, Stephen D. "Willebrord Snell."
Science and Its Times. Ed. Neil Schlager and Josh Lauer. Vol. 3: 1450 to 1699. Detroit: Gale, 2001. 383-384.
Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 10 Sept. 2014. <
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CCX3408501397&v=2.1&u=fl_sarhs&it=r&p=GVRL&sw=w&asid=b93f88b3d05caa002f85ccbb64652ebe>.
