Talk:Willebrord Snellius

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Two issues: First, the 1911 Britannica and some other sources give Snell's birth year as 1591, but others (including the 1999 Britannica and the St. Andrews math history website) have 1580. Anyone have a primary source?

Second, the variant Snellitjs, apparently taken from the "SNELLITJS" on the 1911 Britannica web version, seems to be a scanner error for Snellius, as the 1999 Britannica has it. Where "Snellitis" comes from I have no idea.

Snellitis may also be a scanner and OCR error 'u' may be read as 'ti'.

[edit] Snel or Snell?

I have seen several sources that use the variant spelling, Snel. For an example, see Waves and Grains, by Mark Silverman, p.13. It appears that Snell comes from an anglicization of his latinized moniker, Snellius, while his family name was actually Snel. Are there any other points of reference for this difference?

Grady

Here is an example, in nederlands, that appears to support the idea that his given name was Snel:

http://lerweb.khlim.be/~infav/breking/26snellius.htm

that link does not work and it is a Belgian site, not NL. MH 11:06, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
Currently, both "Snel" and "Snell" are used in Dutch for his name, though "Snellius" is most common. Before 1811, names had no official spelling in the Netherlands, and probably both variant spellings were used, even by Snellius himself. In the current Dutch spelling rules, there are no native words ending in a double "l", but even then, names do not have to follow the rules. -- Eugene van der Pijll 23:44, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

RE The above -- I emailed a Dutch friend - he said the guy's original name was:

   Snel van Royen (Snel's law)

With one 'l'. But he says that in those days they also gave themselves Latin-type names (e.g. "Snellius Law") which resulted in an additional 'l'. And when he was referred to as Willebrord Snell, they sometimes kept the second 'l'. So (a) this topic should be updated to mention this and (b) if you search for "Snel van Royen" you don't find this page. Max

How familiar is your Dutch friend with pre-1811 Dutch spelling?
As I said above: his original name was Snel or Snell; both versions are equivalent. However, I think I found an extract of his marriage record [1] (I hope the link works), which implies that the name he used in real life was "Snellius". -- Eugene van der Pijll 13:20, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

His name was Snell, with -ll. See Dutch Wikipedia http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willebrord_Snell MH 11:06, 11 June 2006 (UTC)