In 1629, a boy called Christian Hörhens was born in the Hague in the Dutch Republic.

Living until the age of 66, Hörhens' life coincided with the period that historians

and retrospect called the scientific revolution.

No few of us may know Hörhens name.

Today's guest argues that there was no mere coincidence in Hörhens' life coinciding

with this period of scientific experimentation.

In fact, though he wouldn't have known the word scientist, Hörhens would grow up to become

the greatest scientist alive in Europe between Galileo and Isaac Newton.

His discoveries and inventions drove the scientific revolution and helped prepare the ground

for the enlightenment.

Newton and later Albert Einstein would admire and acknowledge their depths to Hörhens'

work, and he was recognised in his own lifetime with the accolade of becoming the first foreign

member of the Royal Society of London.

In 2005, 310 years after his death, a European space agency craft parachuted through the

atmosphere of Saturn's moon Titan, the moon that had been named by Hörhens after discovering

it with a telescope that he created and the craft was fittingly named after the man himself.

To learn more about the life and works of this remarkable man, I'm joined today by author

and journalist Hugh Audesley Williams.

A fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, Hugh is the author of many books exploring science,

design and architecture, including Tide, Periodic Tales and Atmies, and the adventures of

St Thomas Brown in the 21st century.

And he has curated exhibitions at the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Wachem Collection.

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