Rasmus Bartholin

Rasmus Bartholin (Known as "Bartholin")

Physician, Physicist, Mathematician, Discoverer of Double Refraction (Birefringence)

Born 1625-08-13

Roskilde, Denmark

Passed Away 1698-11-04 Copenhagen, Denmark

Lifespan 73 years old

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Notice / Correction

"When light enters the pure crystal and splits in twain, nature reveals the double path of her secret rays."

Archival Overview

Pioneering Danish physician and mathematician who discovered the double refraction of light in Iceland spar in 1669, laying the experimental foundation for polarization and wave optics.

Biographical Record

Rasmus Bartholin was born on August 13, 1625, in Roskilde into Denmark's most renowned scientific dynasty. After studying medicine and mathematics at Leiden, Padua, and Paris, he was appointed Professor of Medicine and Mathematics at the University of Copenhagen.

In 1669, Bartholin published Experimenta crystalli islandici disdiaclastici, in which he described how a ray of light passing through a transparent rhombohedral crystal of Iceland spar (calcite) splits into two separate rays traveling at different angles. This phenomenon of double refraction (birefringence) puzzled contemporary optics and became the empirical cornerstone upon which Christiaan Huygens and later Augustin-Jean Fresnel built the wave theory of light.

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Rest in Peace Forever remembered and cherished Your legacy lives on in all of us With deep gratitude for your life and light

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Final Resting Place

Perpetual Memorial

Copenhagen Cathedral (Vor Frue Kirke)
Copenhagen, Denmark

                         GPS: 55.6794, 12.5733                    

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