Willebrord Snel (o Snell) van Royen (o Roijen), detto Willebrordus Snellius, nacque nel 1580 (o nel 1591, come scrive Jacob Freudenthal, Die Lebensgeschichte Spinoza’s in Quellenschriften, Urkunden und nichtamtlichen Nachrichten, Verlag von Veit & Comp., Leipzig 1899, p. 279) a Leida, dove morì nel 1626; fu un astronomo e matematico olandese. Scoprì, con Cartesio, la legge della rifrazione della luce (1620) e introdusse in geodesia il metodo della triangolazione. «Snellius [...] determined first the size of the earth by the geometrical and astro[no]mical measuring of the length of the arc of a meridian. This discovery was again claimed by Pothenot in 1730» (The Abraham Wolf Spinoza Collection at UCLA, a facsimile of the Menno Hertzberger Catalogue, Department of Special Collections, University Research Library, University of California, Los Angeles 1990, p. 104, n. 1285). Fra le sue opere: Apollonius Batavus (1617); Eratosthenes Batavus (1617); Doctrinae triangulorum canonicae libri quatuor, postumi, 1627). «Willebrord Snell was born in 1591 at Royen, and died in 1626, being only 35 years of age. He was professor of mathematics in the university of Leyden as was also his father Rodolph Snell» (Charles Hutton, Tracts on Mathematical and Philosophical Subjects Comprising Among Numerous Important Articles, the Theory of Bridges, with Several Plans of Recent Improvement; Also the Results of Numerous Experiments on the Force of Gunpowder, with Applications to the Modern Practice of Artillery, London, F. C. and J. Rivington, 1812, vol. I, p. 296).

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Tiphys Batavus

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