Don’t let the Netherlands’s size fool you (its colonial power and status as a European nation more than made up for its land mass), the nation has a rich history in science and tech. So I thought I’d list a few I found on Wikipedia that I thought were interesting.
- A 1608 patent for a telescope was submitted to the Netherlands’ government in the Netherlands by a Dutch spectacle makers Zacharias Janssen and Hans Lipperhey (although it’s not confirmed that they actually invented the device).
- Cornelis Drebbel constructed the first recorded navigable submarine in the 1620s and it was propelled by oars.
- Christiaan Huygens, a mathematician, physicist, engineer, astronomer, and inventor, discovered the rings of Saturn and one of its moons, Titan (amongst so many other things, it’d need its own article)
- Biologist Jan Swammerdam first observed red blood cells during a frog dissection
- Jan Ingenhousz discovered the process of photosynthesis in 1779
- The eye chart you see at the opticians? A Dutch ophthalmologist named Herman Snellen invented that, and the chart bears his name
- Paleoanthropologist and geologist Eugène Dubois discovered of one of the first known specimens of Homo erectus in East Java
- We have Maurice Gatsonides to thank for the invention of the speed camera, all so he could increase his own speed
- Kees Schouhamer Immink pioneering work influenced the creation of media such as the Compact Disc, DVD and Blu-ray
- Guido van Rossum invented Python (and I’m personally grateful for that)
- Jaap Haartsen played a role in creating the Bluetooth specification in 1994
- Lisa Mandemaker invented a prototype artificial womb for premature babies, alongside Hendrik-Jan Grievink and Guid Oei
I’m missing a lot of women in this list, I know, so if you have any suggestions, please leave them in the comments and I’ll add them in.
Filed under: astrophysics data storage outer space planets programming The Netherlands theoretical physics transport