Page "Ole Rømer" Paragraph 2

Rømer was born on 25 September 1644 in Århus to a merchant and skipper, Christen Pedersen, and Anna Olufsdatter Storm, daughter of an alderman.

Christen Pedersen had taken to using the name Rømer, which means that he was from the Danish island of Rømø, to distinguish himself from a couple of other people named Christen Pedersen.

There are few sources on Ole Rømer until his immatriculation in 1662 at the University of Copenhagen, at which his mentor was Rasmus Bartholin who published his discovery of the double refraction of a light ray by Iceland spar ( calcite ) in 1668, while Rømer was living in his home.

Rømer was given every opportunity to learn mathematics and astronomy using Tycho Brahe's astronomical observations, as Bartholin had been given the task of preparing them for publication.