Willebrord Snell Biography

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 30^th, 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>.