1580-1626

Dutch Physicist and Mathematician

Willebrord Snell is remembered for discovering the law of refraction that bears his name. He has also been called the father of modern geodesy for perfecting the method of determining distances by trigonometric triangulation.

Snell was born in 1580 in Leiden, Netherlands. He was the son of Rudolph Snell van Royen (Latinized as Snellius), professor of mathematics at the University of Leiden. Willebrord studied law and taught mathematics at Leiden. After touring Europe (1600-04) he returned home, where he prepared a Latin translation of Simon Stevin's (c. 1548-1620) Wisconstighe Ghedachtenissen and worked on restoring the two existing books of Apollonius's (c. 262-c. 290 B.C.) work on plane loci. In 1608 he received his M.A. and married. After the death of Rudolph in 1613, Willebrord assumed his father's teaching duties, officially succeeding him in 1615.

It was also during 1615 that Snell set himself the task...