Zacharias Janssen
Zacharias Janssen (also written Sacharias Jansen, Zacharias Jansen ; * around 1588 in The Hague , † around 1631 in Amsterdam ) was a Dutch optician who mostly lived in Middelburg .
Live and act
Zacharias Janssen was a Greek ( Ioannidis > Janssen ), capable optician and peddler (Dutch: Marskramer ), who had learned his trade from his father, the lens grinder and glasses dealer Hans Martens Janssen († 1619). He traveled a lot through his work as a peddler, later he ran a company in Amsterdam, which went bankrupt . Janssen was also known as a forger of copper , gold and silver coins . As a result, he often came into conflict with the law and was also convicted.
Janssen is associated with the invention of the telescope . On September 25, 1608, Hans Lippershey applied for a patent for the invention of the telescope. In October 1608 another patent was requested which was attributed to Janssen. A short time later, Jacob Metius claimed the patent. Lippershey demonstrated his invention in front of Moritz von Oranien in The Hague, but he still did not obtain the patent.
A year later, in 1609, Galileo Galilei came to the public with his self-made telescope.
Zacharias Janssen's son, Johannes Zachariassen, who was born in 1611, was later to swear under oath that Hans Lippershey, also from Middelburg, stole his father's idea for the telescope.
The Janssens telescope was a simple tube with lenses at the end. The magnification ranged from three to nine times.
The moon crater Jansen and the exoplanet Janssen are named after him.
further reading
- Daniel Boorstin, De ontdekkers. De zoektocht van de mens naar zichzelf en zijn wereld. Elsevier, Amsterdam 1987. ISBN 90-10-05931-6 .
- Ilse Jahn: Janssen, Sacharias. In: Werner E. Gerabek u. a. (Ed.): Encyclopedia of medical history. De Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2005, ISBN 3-11-015714-4 , p. 688.
Web links
- About the life and work of Zacharias Janssen . Dutch, accessed December 29, 2012
Individual evidence
- ^ Geschiedenis Zeeland, Zacharias Jansen . With photos. Dutch, accessed December 29, 2012
- ↑ 400 years of the invention of the telescope. 1608 to 2008 ( memento of January 22, 2008 in the Internet Archive ). Dutch, accessed December 29, 2012
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Janssen, Zacharias |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Dutch optician |
| DATE OF BIRTH | around 1588 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | The hague |
| DATE OF DEATH | around 1631 |
| Place of death | Amsterdam |