All thinkers

Christiaan Huygens: 2 ideas and puzzles worth knowing

2 ideas and puzzles from Christiaan Huygens, each explained in a minute and credited to the original work. Free on Savvy.

• Two gamblers with unequal fortunes flip coins until one goes broke. Who wins more often?

  Player A starts with £9, Player B with £1. Each round, they flip a fair coin for £1, stopping only when one player is wiped out. It's a fair coin, so surely the game itself is fair…

  — Christiaan Huygens, De Ratiociniis in Ludo Aleae

• A better telescope lens revealed Saturn wasn't shaped the way anyone thought

  In 1655, Christiaan Huygens ground his own telescope lenses to a higher precision than Galileo's and discovered Saturn's largest moon, Titan. He then worked out that the strange 'h…

  — Christiaan Huygens, Systema Saturnium

Five ideas worth knowing, every week

The week's best cards and a puzzle, credited as always. Free, unsubscribe any time.

Subscribe