Rasmus Bartholin
Template:Short description Template:Use dmy dates Template:Infobox scientist Rasmus Bartholin (Template:IPAc-en; Latinized: Erasmus Bartholinus; 13 August 1625 – 4 November 1698) was a Danish physician and grammarian.
BiographyEdit
Bartholin was born in Roskilde. He was the son of Caspar Bartholin the Elder (1585–1629) and Anna Fincke, daughter of the mathematician Thomas Fincke.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
As part of his studies, he travelled in Europe for ten years. He stayed in the Netherlands, England, France and Italy. In 1647, he took a Master's degree at the University of Copenhagen. In 1654, he received a Doctoral degree at the University of Padua.
He was a professor at the University of Copenhagen, first in Geometry, later in Medicine. He was also dean of the faculty of medicine, librarian, and rector.<ref>Erasmus Bartholin School of Mathematics and Statistics. University of St Andrews, Scotland</ref> He wrote, in Latin, the first grammar of the Danish language, the 1657 De studio lingvæ danicæ.
Rasmus Bartholin is remembered especially for his discovery (1669) of the double refraction of a light ray by Iceland spar (calcite).<ref>Erasmus Bartholin, Experimenta crystalli islandici disdiaclastici quibus mira & insolita refractio detegitur (Copenhagen ("Hafniæ"), Denmark: Daniel Paulli, 1669). English translation: Experiments with the double refracting Iceland crystal which led to the discovery of a marvelous and strange refraction, tr. by Werner Brandt. Westtown, Pa., 1959.</ref> He published an accurate description of the phenomenon, but since the physical nature of light was poorly understood at the time, he was unable to explain it.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> It was only after Thomas Young proposed the wave theory of light, c. 1801 that an explanation became possible.
PersonalEdit
He was a younger brother of Thomas Bartholin (1616–1680).<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
ReferencesEdit
External linksEdit
- "De figura nivis". In Thomas Bartolin, Template:Google books. Copenhagen: P. Haubold, 1661
- Template:MacTutor Biography
- Bartholin, Erasmus 1625-1698 worldcat.org