GALILEO'S EXPERIMENTS.
[Illustration: Fig. 150]
Galileo, himself, in spite of his genius for investigation, was so
engrossed in his researches that he could not seem to disengage the
simple pendulum from the compound pendulums to which he devoted his
attention; besides, he attributed to the oscillation an absolute
generality of isochronism, which they did not possess; nor did he know
how to apply his famous discovery to the measurement of time. In fact,
it was not till after more than half a century had elapsed, in 1657, to
be exact, that the celebrated Dutch mathematician and astronomer,
Huygens, published his memoirs in which he made known to the world the
degree of perfection which would accrue to clocks if the pendulum were
adopted to regulate their movement.
[Illustration: Fig. 151]
An attempt was indeed made to snatch from Huygens and confer upon
Galileo the glory of having first applied the pendulum to a clock, but
this attempt not having been made until some time after the publication
of "Huygens' Memoirs," it was impossible to place any faith in the
contention.
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