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Robert Hooke
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Robert Hooke was a brilliant British experimental and theoretical scientist who lived and worked in London during the seventeenth century. As a child, Hooke suffered from a devastating case of smallpox that left him physically and emotionally scarred for the rest of his life. He was born the son of a minister on July 18, 1635 at Freshwater, on the Isle of Wight. Hooke's father, John Hooke, took an active role in Robert's early education until he entered the Westminster School at the age of thirteen following his father's suicide. After graduating Westminster in 1648, Hooke first conducted an apprenticeship with artist Sir Peter Lely, and then entered Oxford University where he met and studied under some of the greatest scientists in England. Hooke eventually became a paid assistant for Robert Boyle and helped develop a working air pump.
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Robert Hooke was the English scientist and inventor who wrote the 1665 book Micrographia, in which he coined the term "cell" for a basic biological structure. A gifted student with a particular talent for mechanics, Hooke was educated at Oxford, where he assisted Robert Boyle with his successful air pump experiments. A member of the Royal Society from 1663, Hooke was accomplished in astronomy, biology, physics and architecture, and his skill as an instrument maker gave him an edge over his contemporaries. He argued with Isaac Newton over the nature of light and gravity, and their long-running debate is said to have left both men forever bitter toward each other. Hooke's studies of springs and elasticity led to his enunciation of "Hooke's Law" (a spring's extension is proportional to the weight hanging from it), and he is credited with inventing the balance spring that allowed for the making of small, accurate timepieces. He ... invented a reflecting microscope, the universal joint, and a variety of clocks, barometers and optical devices.
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Robert Hooke and John Flamsteed had a volatile relationship. Their longstanding mutual dislike and mistrust of each other was heightened when they were forced into co-operation in 1676. The largely unknown Flamsteed had been placed in charge of the new Royal Observatory at Greenwich. As a skilled astronomer and instrument maker with a great interest in mechanical precision, this was a position for which Hooke felt better qualified. Hooke was given the task of furnishing the Observatory with instruments. Predictably Flamsteed was less than impressed with Hooke’s instruments.
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Robert Hooke was perhaps the single most influential and experimental scientist of the 17th century. His interests ranged from physics and astronomy, to biology, chemistry, geology, architecture, and navel technology. He collaborated and corresponded with chemist Robert Boyle, and scientists Isaac Newton and Christian Huygens among others at that time. He is probably one of the most neglected natural philosophers of all time. The inventor of the iris diaphram in cameras, the universal joint used in automobiles, the balance wheel in a watch, the originator of the word 'cell ' in biology. Hooke is best known to those who study elementary Physics through Hooke's Law: 'The extension of a spring is proportional to the weight hanging from it.' Most people have never heard of Robert Hooke.
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The Curious Life of Robert Hooke draws a portrait of the gifted but cranky English scientist Robert Hooke, known to history as much for losing quarrels with more prominent scientists as for his achievements. He was one of the founding fathers of the Royal Society and teamed with Christopher Wren in rebuilding London after the Great Fire of 1666. Hooke is perhaps best, and certainly unjustly, remembered for losing to Newton in a challenge for credit as discoverer of the inverse-square law of gravitational attraction. Jardine's newest book follows her biography of Christopher Wren in attempting to rehabilitate Hooke's reputation as an irascible and forgotten footnote to his more celebrated contemporaries. She artfully intersperses humor by highlighting his career as a scientist, inventor, writer, illustrator, curator of experiments and secretary of the Royal Society. "Sure to become the standard life of Hooke," says Publisher's Weekly, "Jardine's sympathetic study will please readers interested in the early years of modern science and scientific biographies."
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Image source Robert Hooke was born on July 18, 1635. As a child he survived smallpox, but was scarred physically and emotionally for life. When Hooke was thirteen years old, he became an orphan and was sent off to London. He was lucky in London to meet the painter Sir Peter Lely, and with him Hooke developed his artistic skills. As a boy, Robert Hooke had shown ... considerable interest and skill in mechanical things. This, along with Hooke's intelligence, did not escape the notice of Richard Busby, who saw great genius in Hooke, and got involved to the extent of taking the boy into his own home.
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Robert Hooke