Robert Hooke

English physicist, architect, and environmental thinker Robert Hooke (1635-1703) played an important part in the revolution of science. As a strong proponent of the value of technical breakthroughs in instrumentation, Hooke performed his scientific studies outside of academic institutions. Among many other areas, he developed multiple advances in the disciplines of directions, optical science, and clockmaking.

Early Years

An account of his life that Hooke started in 1696 yet never finished provides much information about his early years. In the 1705 publication The Posthumous Works of Robert Hooke, M.D. S.R.S. Richard Waller makes an allusion to it in the beginning. Waller's book comprises the principal near-contemporaneous personal explanations of Hooke, as does John Aubrey's Brief Lives and John Ward's Biographies of the Gresham Professors (which includes a list of his key publications).

Robert Hooke was born in Freshwater, Isle of Wight, in 1635. His parents were Cecily Gyles and John Hooke, an Anglican clergyman who worked as a vicar of the Church of All Saints in Freshwater. Robert's paternal uncles, Father John Hooke's siblings, also served as clergymen. As Charles I fled to the Isle of Wight, John Hooke, a monarchist, was presumably one of the people who went to pay their respects.

Robert had anticipated becoming an orthodox monarchist and joining the church. He had four siblings-two boys and two girls-of whom Robert was the youngest by seven years. Robert, who was weak in health, was homeschooled partially despite their father teaching at a nearby school. When Robert Hooke was younger, he became obsessed with art, mechanics, and observation. He took apart a brass clock and created a wooden one that he said operated "pretty decent." With coal, chalk, & ruddle (iron ore), he produced his own sketching supplies.

Robert was given forty pounds at the passing away of his father in 1648. Dr. Richard Busby, the principal of Westminster School, encouraged him to enroll in the institution rather than taking a position as an apprentice, so he brought this to London and studied for a brief period under Samuel Cowper and Peter Lely. Soon after, Hooke became fluent in Latin and Greek, grasped Euclid's Elements, picked up the organ, and started his lifetime study of mechanics.

Oxford

Following the completion of 20 organ lessons, Hooke was able to secure a position as a chorister at Christ Church in Oxford in 1653. His job was to serve as a "chemical assistant" to Dr. Thomas Willis, for whom Hooke had a lot of respect. From around 1655 until 1662, he worked as Robert Boyle's assistant, constructing, evaluating, and displaying Boyle's "Machine Boyleana," or air pump.

It was while working there that he came across the natural philosophy. Hooke attempted to persuade Wilkins that the human muscles weren't sufficiently powerful for the challenge of heavier-than-air flying after presenting certain aspects of his plan to him in 1659. He obtained a Master of Arts degree in 1662.

Hooke himself saw his time at Oxford as the starting point of his lifelong fondness for science, and the individuals whom he met there-especially Christopher Wren-were very important to him during his professional life. Wadham College Warden John Wilkins profoundly influenced Hooke and others around him. With the sole exception of the experiments performed by Boyle in 1658 and released in 1660, Wilkins's archives of the Oxford Philosophical Club are a handful. Later, this group became the core members of the Royal Society.

Hooke constructed a pump to circulate air for Boyle's tests following Ralph Greatorex's pump, which Hooke found "too filthy for use in any considerable matter." Hooke was a skilled mathematician and was reputed to have an exceptional sense of sight, qualities that Boyle did not have.

Boyle's law's mathematical formulation has been attributed to Hooke, who is said to have made the above discoveries. Whatever the case, certainly, Hooke remained highly esteemed by Boyle as well as that he was a valuable assistance to him.

At John Tillotson's demand, Hooke picked an uncommon edition of Willis's seminal De anima brutorum, a gift from the author himself, from Wilkins' collection as a memorial upon Wilkins's passing. The Wellcome Library currently has this book. The book, featuring the autograph in Hooke's hand, bears witness to the youthful Hooke's long-lasting impact from Wilkins and his entourage.

The Royal Society

After the Royal Society was established in 1660, it reviewed a brief pamphlet on the rising water level in thin glass pipes in April 1661. Hooke's study said that the elevation of the water increased as a function of the length of the pipe's bore (capillary action). After explaining this phenomenon, he further investigated the concept of "the fluidity of gravity" in Micrography Observ. edition 6. A unanimous vote was held on November 5, 1661, to name Hooke as the Curator to provide the community with experiments, as proposed by Sir Robert Moray. On November 12, he was officially chosen, and Dr. Boyle received praise for allowing him to start working for the Society.

In 1664, Hooke was assigned by the Fellows to set up a Mechanick Lecture after Sir John Cutler paid an annual contribution of fifty pounds to the Society. He was formally appointed to the position on June 27, 1664, and on January 11, 1665, the Office designated him Curator for Life, putting £30 to Cutler's annuities as a salary.

At the Royal Society, Hooke's job was presenting experiments that he performed himself or that members recommended. Talking about the properties of air, showing that the Pabulum vitae and flammae were the same thing, and imploding glass bubbles capped with intense heat were among his early presentations. Along with pointing out the distinction between venous and arterial blood, he also showed how a dog's thorax could be kept open while air was pumped into and out of its lungs.

In addition, investigations have been done on pendulums up to 200 feet (61 meters) long, the topic of gravity, the dropping of things, body measuring, and atmospheric pressure measurement at various heights. Devices were set up to measure arc seconds in the motion of the celestial body or additional stars, the destructiveness of gunpowder, and, most significantly, an engine that could cut watch teeth considerably sharper than could have been done by hand. This engine was in constant operation by the time Hooke passed away.

Hooke compiled his microscopic data in 1663 and 1664, which he later published in Micrographia in 1665. Hooke became Gresham Professor of Geometry on March 20, 1664, succeeding Arthur Dacres' position. In December 1691, Hooke was awarded the title of "Doctor of Physic".

Newcomen and Hooke

There is a widely circulated, though certainly false, rumor stating that Dr. Hooke and Thomas Newcomen exchanged letters about Newcomen's design of the steam engine. Rhys Jenkins, former head of the Newcomen Society, spoke about this tale in 1936. The story's source, stated by Jenkins, can be traced right back to a writing by Dr. John Robison (1739-1805) titled "Steam Engines" in the third volume of the "Encyclopaedia Britannica."

The article explains that "some records of assessments, on Papin's claimed method of transferring the motion of a mill via way of pipes, are to be noticed within Hooke's papers, in the archives of the Royal Society" and that Hooke attempted to discourage Newcomen from creating a machine based on this idea. Jenkins draws attention to multiple mistakes in Robison's article & speculates as to whether the correspondent-whose name has been mistaken as Newcomen-may have actually been Newton, to whom Hooke is believed to have communicated.

Mr. H. W. Dickinson investigated the Royal Society's collection of Hooke's documents, which were initially tied together before Robison's time in the second half of the 18th century and have been meticulously stored ever since. The search turned up no sign of interaction between Hooke and Newcomen. The conclusion of Jenkins was "... that narrative has to be excluded from the origins of the steam engine, at a minimum until proof in writing is obtained."

Although no such proof has been discovered since 1936, the tale has endured. One book from 2011 states, for example, that "in a letter from 1703 Hooke indeed indicate that Newcomen used condensing water to power the piston."

Personality and Conflict

Hooke was reputed to be an ardent companion and supporter. He had been surrounded by ardent royalists during his initial years at Wadham College, especially Christopher Wren. However, it is also said that Hooke was arrogant and constantly irritated by rival intellectuals. According to Hooke, Oldenburg provided information about Hooke's watch escapement. Alternatively, Hooke used codes and protected his own concepts.

However, Hooke had to present a number of the ideas that were submitted to the Royal Society for consideration as its Curator of experiments. Based on available data, Hooke may have taken responsibility for some of his ideas afterward. However, during this era of extraordinary scientific advancement, many concepts emerged in several locations at roughly the same time. Due to his extreme hustle, Hooke discarded many of his own ideas while protecting others.

The disagreement between Hooke and Isaac Newton about who should get credit for particular scientific advances, including those in gravity, astronomy, and the field of optics, is maybe more important. Following Hooke's passing, Newton wondered about his legacy.

Furthermore, it is said that Newton erased or neglected to safeguard Hooke's sole known picture while serving as president of the Royal Society. Robert Gunther and Margaret Espinasse, two experts, brought Hooke's heritage back to life in the 20th century and made him one of the most significant scientists of his day.

Everything about Hooke is impressive, especially his ability to be creative, his amazing ability for experimentation, and his work ethic. Here are some of his theories on gravity and his assertion that the inverse square rule comes first. In the areas of elasticity, optical science, and barometry, he received several patents for his discoveries and advances. The lately recovered Hooke papers from the Royal Society (which vanished when Newton gained leadership) could provide the opportunity for a contemporary re-evaluation.

A lot has been said about the adverse features of Hooke's character, beginning with remarks given by Richard Waller, his first biographer, who characterized Hooke as "melancholy, mistrustful, and envious" as well as "in person, but repulsive." For more than two centuries, Waller's criticisms influenced the works of later authors, leading to the prevalent picture of Hooke in several older publications as a self-centered, resentful, and rude skeptic.

As to Arthur Berry's statement, Hooke stated that attribution for the majority of the advances in the science of the time." Sullivan described Hooke's interactions with Newton as "constructively dishonest" and "uneasy anticipatory pride." In describing him, Manuel used the words "cantankerous, jealous, hostile." More described Hooke as possessing a "caustic tongue" in addition to a "cynical attitude." Although Andrade was more empathetic, she still described Hooke as "challenging "suspicious," and "annoyed."

When Hooke's journal was published in 1935, it provided formerly undiscovered information about his personal and family life. According to Hooke's biographer Margaret Espinasse, "the image that is generally portrayed of Hooke as a melancholy... reclusive is entirely false." Prominent artisans like Christopher Cocks (Cox), a device maker, and clockmaker Thomas Tompion were among the people Hooke dealt with. He had been friends with John Aubrey for a long time and often came across Christopher Wren since he shared similar hobbies.

Additionally, Hooke's journals frequently mention meals with Robert Boyle & visits to coffee shops and bars. He had common tea parties with Harry Hunt, his lab helper. Aside from the domestic staff, Hooke lived mostly alone, although, for a few years, as a youngster, his niece Grace Hooke and cousin Tom Giles shared his residence.

Hooke was not married. In his journal, he writes that while his niece Grace was in his care from the age of ten to seventeen, he physically assaulted her. Additionally, Hooke had intercourse with plenty of maids and domestic servants. He documents the fact that one of the domestic staff gave birth to a daughter, but he neglects to acknowledge the child's father.

Death

Hooke had migraines, dizziness, and episodes of sleeplessness due to the stress of a heavy job. Using the same thorough approach he used to his profession, he explored self-medication, keeping a detailed journal of his indications, drugs, and side effects. His habitual use of opiates, salammoniac, and cleanses seems to have had a significant negative effect on his bodily and mental well-being over time.

After turning blind and limited to bed for the remaining year of his lifespan, Hooke passed away in London on March 3, 1703. His Gresham College room comprised a chest that was discovered to hold £8,000 in cash and gold. Despite his previous negotiations about leaving a significant legacy to the Royal Society, which could have named a library, laboratory, and speeches in his honor, no allemony was discovered, and the funds went to Elizabeth Stephens, his cousin. Although Hooke's burial is marked at St. Helen's Church, Bishopsgate, in the City of London, the exact location is in doubt.

Science

Mechanics

In 1660, Hooke derived the first law of elasticity, which characterizes the linear change in pressure with expansion in an elastic spring. The first anagram he used to explain this finding was "clinostat," a solution that he released in 1678 under the title "Ut tensio, sic vis," which translated to "As an extension, so the pressure." The creation of the balancing spring, commonly referred to as the hairspring, by Hooke marked the practical completion of his studies on elasticity.

It allowed watches to be reasonably accurate portable timepieces for the first time. Despite knowing that a note issued June 23, 1670, found in the Hooke Folio, described an exhibit of a balance-controlled look before the Royal Society and was ultimately held as backing Hooke's claim, there remained an argument between Hooke and Christiaan Huygens regarding the supremacy of this creation for centuries after their deaths.

When Hooke initially proposed the law of elasticity, it was given as an anagram. Scientists like Huygens, Galileo, Hooke, and more utilized this technique to establish the importance of discovery while suppressing specifics.

In 1662, Hooke was made Curator of Experiments for the newly established Royal Society, where he supervised experiments conducted at the group's weekly sessions. He spent more than 40 years in this role. Although this put him at the center of British and global studies, it also brought him into some heated discussions with significant scientists, including Huygens, Isaac Newton, and Henry Oldenburg of the Royal Society. Additionally, Hooke was designated the Cutlerian Lecturer in Mechanics and Professor of Geometry at Gresham College in London in 1664.

Hooke noticed the nodal structures connected to the glass plate waves on July 8, 1680. The nodal patterns appeared when he ran a bow down the edge of a flour-covered glass plate. In the field of acoustics, he presented to the Royal Society in 1681 how precisely sized teeth carved into rotating metal gears could generate tunes.

The Force of Gravity

Hooke defended an appealing theory of gravity in Micrographia (1665), in contrast to the views shared by numerous of his time, who thought that the aether served as a channel for expressing emotions between distant celestial entities. Hooke introduced two further concepts in his 1666 address to the Royal Society about gravity. All objects travel in straight lines unless some force diverts them, and the attraction force is larger for bodies that are closer together. In his global theory, Dugald Stewart used quotes from Hooke himself.

Hooke introduced the idea that gravity is applicable to "all celestial bodies" in his 1670 Gresham lecture, together with the idea that things move in straight lines when there is no attracting force and that this strength declines with distance.

In 1674, Hooke elaborated on his "An Effort to Prove the Movement of the Planet Earth from Observations" by publishing his bit mature views on the "System of the World" once again. According to Hooke's obvious theory, the Sun and planets are mutually attracted to one another in a manner that becomes closer to the attractive body.

Nevertheless, Hooke did not note in his writings until 1674 that an inverse square rule may or wouldn't be applicable to these attractions. Although it came closer to universality than prior hypotheses, Hooke's gravity was still not yet universal. Furthermore, Hooke lacked a mathematical justification or supporting data.

On both of these points, Hooke wrote in 1674: "Now what such varying degrees [of gravitational attraction] are I have not yet been empirically confirmed" (implying that he had not yet discovered what law the gravitation could comply with), and on the idea as a whole, he wrote, "This I just indicate at existing," "possessing myself a lot other matters in hand that I would initially complete, and consequently can't so well participate in it" (i.e., "prosecuting this Inquiry").

An amazing conversation between Hooke and Newton began in November 1679; the whole correspondence is now available for reading. The stated purpose of Hooke's visit with Newton was to inform him of his appointment to oversee communications for the Royal Society. Hooke consequently wanted to get input from members concerning their own research, in addition to their views regarding the research of others.

Seeking to pique Newton's curiosity, he sought a wide range of topics, including "my hypothesis of the laws or reasons for springiness," "inflation of the astronomical movements of the planets of their own movement by the parallel and a pleasing motion to the main body," and an innovative theory regarding the motion of the planets from Paris (which Hooke went into detail). Other topics included attempts to conduct or enhance national surveys, the latitude variation between London and Cambridge, as well as additional items.

Horology

Hooke was actively involved in the innovations of his era and made major improvements to the science of clockwork. He introduced a pendulum as an improved clock regulator, a balance spring for improving watch accuracy, and the idea that an accurate timekeeper might be used to determine longitude at sea.

Anchor Escapement

According to his autobiographical documents, Hooke first became acquainted with astronomy in 1655 because of John Ward's valuable connections. Hooke put a lot of effort into making a pendulum more effective, and in 1657 or 1658, he started working on the workings of the pendulum. He examined the theories of Giovanni Riccioli and then studied the principles of timekeeping and gravity.

In a 1717 letter from Paris, Henry Sully praised Dr. Hooke, once a geometry professor at Gresham College in London, for his creative creation of the anchor escapement. Hooke is also mentioned by William Derham.

Watch Balance Spring

At that point, determining longitude presented an important obstacle to navigation. Hooke said that he eventually came up with a method and tried to patent it with assistance from Boyle and others. During this procedure, Hooke displayed a pocket watch he had created himself, which included a coil spring connected to the balance's armor.

Hooke ultimately failed to get circumstances that would have made this proposal sufficiently profitable to be implemented, which led to its shelving and, presumably, increased jealousy of his own ideas. A minimum of five years prior to Christiaan Huygens publishing his own research in the Journal de Scavans in February 1675, Hooke was the one who independently found the balancing spring.

Microscopy

The first known microbe is the micro fungus Mucor, which is explained in Hooke's 1665 publication Micrographia, along with other unique scientific research and observations made using telescopes and microscopes. When Hooke first proposed the title "cell," he was implying that plant structure was similar to honeycomb cells. The National Museum of Health and Medicine in Maryland currently contains the handmade, leather, and gold-tooled microscope he used to collect his observations for Micrographia, which was initially constructed by Christopher White in London.

Another set of views on combustion found in Micrographia is those of Hooke, or maybe Hooke and Boyle. Hooke's investigations led him to the conclusion that something in combination with air is involved in burning, an idea that is now accepted by scientists but was not well recognized in the seventeenth century. Hooke followed by drawing the conclusion that breathing requires a certain element of the air. Even further, Partington argues that "it is likely that Hooke would have detected oxygen had he pursued his research on combustion."

Paleontology

In Micrographia, he created a note of fossil wood while contrasting its microscopic structure to that of regular wood. This ultimately led him to the assumption that fossilized materials, such as wood that has turned to stone and fossilized shells like ammonites, were once alive organisms submerged in rich minerals petrifying water.

Despite the challenges of modern ecologists such as John Ray, who discovered the idea of extinction theologically inadmissible, Hooke argued that fossils of this kind offered trustworthy indications into the past existence of life on Earth and that, in certain cases, they could indicate extinct species that had perished because of some geological disaster.

Astronomy

The determination of a distance to a star (apart from the Sun) represented one of the harder topics that Hooke took on. In this case, parallax measurement was the chosen technique, and Gamma Draconis was the chosen star. Hooke thought the intended outcome had been reached in 1669 after monitoring for many months. The measurement failed because Hooke's apparatus was considerably too inaccurate, as is now recognized. James Bradley discovered the aberration of light in 1725 using the same star, Gamma Draconis.

Hooke did more in astronomy than only measuring star distance. He depicts lunar craters and the Pleiades star cluster in his Micrographia. To investigate how such craters may have originated, he conducted tests. In 1664, Hooke made the discovery of Gamma Arietis, one of the earliest double-star systems ever detected. Hooke was also among the first to notice the rings encircling Saturn.

Memory

Hooke's scientific model of human memory is a less popular but exceptionally creative contribution. Hooke introduced an electronic representation of human memory to the Royal Society in 1682. This model deviated greatly from the primarily logical ideas that came before it. Encoding, memory capacity, repetition, retrieval, & forgetting were all topics covered by this framework, some of which are surprisingly accurate in the present era.

This study, which was overlooked for over 200 years, was somewhat comparable to that of Richard Semon in 1919-1923, both supposing that memories were tangible and existed in the brain. The more fascinating aspects of the model are as follows:

• It accepts attention along with additional top-down impacts on encoding.
• It executes cue-dependent recovery simultaneously using a connection.
• It describes memory for recurrence.
• It provides a single-system consideration of repetition and priming.
• The power-law principle of neglecting can be developed in an easy way from the model's foundation.

The memory model was set up unusually in a sequence of studies on the properties of light, leading to the posthumous publication of this lecture in 1705. It has been suggested that this work got minimal critique since it was published in limited quantities in the post-Newtonian era of science & was probably regarded obsolete when it was released. Hooke included different allusions to immaterial souls, which modern memory psychologists rejected, in relation to focus, encoding, and retrieval procedures, which hampered its popularity.

Architecture

As Christopher Wren's chief assistant as well as an investigator for the City of London, Hooke supported Wren in rebuilding London, complying with the Great Fire of 1666. He also contributed to the architectural designs of multiple additional buildings, such as the Royal Greenwich Observatory, Montagu House in Bloomsbury, and London's Monument to the Fire.

Among the projects Hooke and Christopher Wren collaborated on was St. Paul's Cathedral, whose dome was built employing a technique Hooke created. In addition, Hooke had a hand in the layout of the Pepys Library, which housed the manuscripts of Samuel Pepys's newspapers, the most often recognized personal narrative of the Great Fire of London.

The Monument was supposed to be used as a telescope for scientific research to see transits since both Hooke and Wren were avid astronomers. However, Hooke's precise measurements conducted after the structure was completed revealed that its incapacity to pick up transits was due to the column's movement in the direction of the breeze. This left its mark on the architecture of the spiral staircase, which lacks a center column, and the observatory room that is still in use below ground level.

Hooke suggested rearranging London's streets in the wake of the Great Fire with a grid system including broad boulevards and arteries. Haussmann eventually applied this layout to his renovations of Paris, Liverpool, and various other American towns. Property rights challenges hindered this initiative because owners were quietly redesigning their borders. Because of his skill as an arbitrator and his subtlety as a surveyor, Hooke became sought after to resolve a great deal of these conflicts.

Identical

Robert Hooke never had a verified portrait. This state of affairs is occasionally linked to the intense disputes between Hooke and Newton; however, allegations that Newton or his followers deliberately destroyed Hooke's image are dismissed as fiction by Hooke's biographer, Allan Chapman. During his excursion to the Royal Society in 1710, Zacharias Conrad von Uffenbach, a German scholar and antiquarian, reported that he was shown two portraits of "Boyle and Hoock," which were reportedly good representations.

However, Hooke's portrait appears to be gone, while Boyle's is still intact. When Hooke was alive, the Royal Society convened in Gresham College. However, a few months after Hooke's death, Newton was elected president of the Society, and provisions were made for a new location. Hooke's Royal Society picture vanished and was never recovered until the decision was made to eventually relocate a few years later, in 1710.

An alleged picture of Hooke appeared in Time magazine on July 3, 1939. But when Ashley Montagu tracked out the source, it turned out to be unreliable in terms of its affiliation with Hooke. Montagu further discovered that although two contemporaneous documented accounts of Hooke's looks agreed with one other, none of them matched the Time's portrayal.

The renowned painter Mary Beale's modern portraiture of an anonymous sitter, titled "Portrait of a Mathematician," prompted assistant professor Dr. Larry Griffing of Texas A&M University hypothesized in 2019 that Hooke was the person in question, pointing out that the sitter's physical characteristics corresponded to Hooke's. Hooke seems to have sketched an elliptical motion graphic that corresponds to an undiscovered text. Moreover, an orrery illustrating the same idea is included in the artwork. According to Griffing, the structures seen in the picture are those of Lowther Castle, which is now located in Cumbria, namely its Church of St. Michael.