The Dutch East India Company, Christiaan Huygens and the Marine Clock, 1682-95

Abstract

The story of the Dutch East India Company, Christiaan Huygens and the marineclock shows that in the seventeenth century Dutch Republic there was a tendency towards theformation of a modern partnership between business, science and technology. This emergingrelationship was personified by Johannes Hudde (1628–1704) and Christiaan Huygens(1629–1695), men from entirely different walks of life except for their shared interest inscience, especially mathematics. It was this shared interest in mathematics which brought themtogether and indirectly led to the marine clock research project. Hudde was a Director of theDutch East India Company as well as a mathematician of international standing, whilstHuygens was both a brilliant theoretical scientist and extremely skilled innovator. Through hisinterest in mathematics, Hudde had come to know Huygens — he had corresponded with himand was broadly familiar with the work Huygens had been doing. So when Huygens, in 1682,returned to Holland from France, Hudde conceived the idea, which was entirely novel at thetime, to enlist the support of the East India Company for one of Huygens' research projects, aproject, of course, in which the Company had a direct economic interest, namely, the marineclock which it needed to find the longitude at sea.