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Robert Hooke: Isaac Newton
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No undisputed portrait of Robert Hooke exists, a fact that is sometimes attributed to the conflicts between Hooke and Isaac Newton. In 2003 historian Lisa Jardine claimed that a recently discovered portrait was of Hooke[1], but this claim was disproved by William Jensen of the University of Cincinnati and by the German researcher Andreas Pechtl of Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz.[2] The portrait found by Jardine, in fact, depicts the Flemish scholar Jan Baptist van Helmont. A seal used by Hooke displays an unusual profile portrait of a man's head, which some have argued portrays Hooke. Both these claims remain in dispute....
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Robert Hooke was one of a special breed of scientist whose intellect and ingenuity spanned many different disciplines. Like his contemporaries Isaac Newton (1642-1727) and Christiaan Huygens, Hooke worked in many fields, often withremarkable results.
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Robert Hooke was perhaps one of the most important scientists from the 17th century. While his research and findings were often overshadowed by those of his rival Sir Isaac Newton, one cannot argue their importance in the development of fields such as physics, astronomy, biology, and medicine, to name a few.
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Hooke anticipated some of the most important discoveries and inventions of his time but failed to carry many of them through to completion. He formulated the theory of planetary motion as a problem in mechanics, and grasped, but did not develop mathematically, the fundamental theory on which the English physicist Sir Isaac Newton formulated the law of gravitation. Hooke's most important contributions include the correct formulation of the theory of elasticity, which states that an elastic body stretches in proportion to the force that acts upon it; and analysis of the nature of combustion. He was the first to use the balance spring for the regulation of watches, and devised improvements in pendulum clocks. Hooke was ... a pioneer in microscopic research and published his observations, which included the discovery of plant cells.
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Hooke first appealed to Halley saying that Newton had taken all credit for the theory of gravity, when in fact, he, Hooke, had given the idea to Newton. This put Halley in a difficult situation. Halley was himself paying for the Principia to be published, and the last thing he needed was for Newton to get temperamental. However, Halley had to know first hand, because of previous communication with Hooke, that Hooke was not unreasonable in his claims. Halley and Hooke had long before discussed the idea that the force of gravitation must diminish by the square of the distance across which it is propagated and agreed that the inverse square law could explain Kepler's discovery that the planets move in elliptical orbits, each sweeping out an equal area within its orbit in equal time. Halley wrote Newton and told him, "He sais you had the notion from him, though he owns the Demonstration of the Curves generated thereby to be wholly your own: how much of this is so you know best, as likewise what you have to do in this matter, only Mr. Hooke seems to expect you should make some mention of him in the preface, which, it is possible, you may see reason to prefix."3
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It was Newton's refusal to acknowledge Hooke's insight into this Inverse Square Law of Gravitation, following the publication of Principia in 1687, that led to the appalling debacle which broke out in the Royal Society. Yet with a knowledge of Newton's work to hand, one can see how very differently the two men approached the problem of gravitation, and science in general. Hooke was the mechanist, constantly searching for physical connecting agents d~at could be demonstrated experimentally. Newton was the mathematician, willing to accept the presence of force that acted at a distance, provided that it was amenable to precise mathematical expression.
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