Nicolas Hartsoeker

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Hartsoeker's presentation of the preformation (1694): The embryo is already preformed in the sperm and is formed by protuberance

Nicolas Hartsoeker , Nicolaas Hartsoeker, also Hartsoecker, (born March 26, 1656 in Gouda , † December 10, 1725 in Utrecht ) was a Dutch instrument maker, mathematician and physicist , who is also known for his contribution to embryology .

Life

Principes de physique. 1696

Hartsoeker was the son of the Protestant pastor Christiaan Hartsoeker (1626–1683) and Annetie van der Mey. He was originally supposed to study theology like his father, but turned to the natural sciences and lens grinding. In addition, he studied anatomy and philosophy at the University of Leiden in 1674 , but according to a letter from Constantin Huyghens to his brother Christiaan Huygens , he was largely self-taught without any formal higher education. In 1672 he visited Antoni van Leeuwenhoek . In 1676 he went to Rotterdam and the following year to Amsterdam . He was a friend and student of Christiaan Huygens, whom he accompanied to Paris in 1678, where he met French scientists and worked for a time at the observatory. In 1679 he was back in Rotterdam in the Netherlands, where he married Elisabeth Vettekeuken in 1680, with whom he had a son (Christian, * 1684). Hartsoeker went into business for himself as an instrument maker and wine merchant, but went bankrupt and moved back to France. From 1684 to 1696 he lived in Passy near Paris and made instruments, among other things for the Paris observatory. His first book dealing with optics was published in 1694. In 1696 he was in Rotterdam and in 1697 in Amsterdam, where he taught the tsar Peter I mathematics, physics and astronomy, for which the city council built a small observatory. However, he declined the offer to come to Saint Petersburg as a mathematics professor. After the Tsar's departure, Hartsoeker instructed the Landgrave of Hessen-Kassel, for which he was allowed to use the Amsterdam Observatory. The lectures on physics were later published as Conjectures physique and Suite des conjectures physiques . From 1704 to 1716, on the recommendation of his pupil, the Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel, he was court mathematician with the Palatinate Elector Johann Wilhelm in Düsseldorf. He became a professor in Heidelberg and lived and taught in Utrecht from 1716 .

Act

In 1696 his textbook Principes de physique appeared , which he wrote in French in Paris. He was neither a supporter of Cartesian doctrine nor Newton's and rejected Newton's theory of gravitational attraction. He also rejected Leibniz's philosophy and criticized Leeuwenhoek (in his Cours de physique, published posthumously in 1730 ).

Hartsoecker established his reputation primarily as an instrument maker. He made lenses, microscopes (one type is named after him) and telescopes for the Paris observatory, among others. In his own words, he invented a method of using small glass spheres as microscope lenses (the priority for this was probably Johan Hudde ). Two of his lenses have been preserved, one from 1688 in the Leiden Natural History Museum and the other in the Utrecht University Museum. He built at least three telescopes for the University of Utrecht.

He also dealt with embryology , discovered sperm cells under the microscope, which he initially considered to be disease relics, and believed that the fetus was preformed in them ( preformation theory ). A widespread pictorial homunculus representation of the sperm comes from him , which is depicted as standard in works on the history of embryology.

Hartsoecker was an external member of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences . In 1699 he became a foreign member of the Académie des Sciences .

He was a frequent correspondent for Huygens.

Quote

“I believe that no one of sane senses could ever seriously be persuaded that the visible world was formed by the accidental meeting of an infinite number of atoms, without the providence of an omnipotent being having brought them into their present order. This would be much more incomprehensible than if all the letters that appear in the Aeneid Virgil had accidentally thrown around each other, had arranged themselves in such a way that the poems had come to the fore in the form composed by the poet "

- Nicolas Hartsoeker : Principles of Physics. 1696, p. 3.

Fonts

  • Essai de dioptrique, Paris 1694 (Dutch 1699)
  • Principes de physiques, Paris 1696
    • Dutch translation by A. Block: Beginselen der Natuurkunde, Amsterdam 1700
  • Conjectures physiques, Amsterdam 1706
  • Suite des conjectures physiques, Amsterdam 1708
  • Éclarissements sur les conjectures physiques, Amsterdam 1710
  • Nova methodus utendi maximis objectivis, Berlin 1710
  • Description des deux niveaux d'une nouvelle invention, Amsterdam 1711
  • Suite des conjectures physiques et des éclarissements .., Amsterdam 1712
  • Second partie de la suite des conjectures physiques, Amsterdam 1712
  • Recueil des plusieurs pièces de physique ou l'on fait principalement voir l'invalidité du système de Mr. Newton .., Utrecht 1722
  • Cours de physique accompagné de plusieurs pièces concernant la physique qui ont déja paru, The Hague 1730

literature

Web links

  • Nikolaus (Nikolaas) Hartsoeker. In: Historical calendar of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences.
  • Robert A. Hatch, University of Florida: Nicolas Hartsoeker. In: The Scientific Revolution. December 1998 (English, entry in the list based on Richard S. Westfalls "Dictionary of Scientific Biography Catalog").;
  • Hartsoeker Screw-Barrel Microscope. In: Optical Microscopy Primer. Michael W. Davidson and The Florida State University(English).;

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Dict. Sci. Biogr., Volume 6, p. 148
  2. ↑ Barbara I. Tshisuaka: Hartsoecker, Nicolas. 2005, p. 537 and Dict. Sci. Biogr.
  3. ↑ Frauke Böttcher: The mathematical and natural philosophical learning and working of the Marquise du Chatelet, Springer, 2013, p. 193
  4. ^ List of members since 1666: Letter H. Académie des sciences, accessed on November 23, 2019 (French). , and Dict. Sci. Biogr.
personal data
SURNAME Hartsoeker, Nicolas
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Hartsoecker, Nicolas; Hartsoeker, Nicolaas
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Dutch biologist, mathematician and physicist
DATE OF BIRTH March 26, 1656
PLACE OF BIRTH Gouda cheese
DATE OF DEATH December 10, 1725
Place of death Utrecht