Robert Hooke

Robert Hooke (1635-1703) was one of the most brilliant and versatile figures of his time. His own law, Hooke’s Law, has to do with elasticity, but he brought a piercing intelligence and inventiveness to bear on a remarkable range of fields – anatomy, astronomy, geometry and geology among them.

Hooke proved the rotation of Jupiter on its axis and determined the rotation period of Mars. He discovered that light rays bend round corners (diffraction) and put forward the wave theory of light to account for it. He investigated the action of the lungs and identified the role of air in combustion. He studied the crystal structure of snowflakes and the honeycomb structure of cork. He was interested in music and acoustics, and he designed balance springs for watches. He suggested the manufacture of artificial fibres by copying the action of silkworms. He examined fossils and tried vainly to get the history of the Earth examined in a non-Biblical light.

Stephen Inwood’s recent biography, The Man Who Knew Too Much, shows Hooke interested in virtually everything. He devised improved scientific instruments – thermometers, telescopes, microscopes, pendulums and pumps – as well as a pedometer, a marine barometer, a depth sounder and various navigational instruments. He made advances in the study of insects and lectured on the medicinal properties of cannabis. He worked on machines for making cider and measuring the wind. He considered the possibilities of flying machines, long-distance signalling systems and bouncing shoes, which would shoot the wearer twelve feet up in the air. Not content with all this, he was also a practising architect who worked with Christopher Wren on the rebuilding of the City of London after the Great Fire of 1666.

He  died a disappointed man.Because when Newton produced his theory of light and colour in 1672, Hooke claimed that what was correct in Newton's theory was stolen from his own ideas about light of 1665 and what was original was wrong. And this led to a bitter dispute with Newton. Hooke has been described as a:-... lean, bent and ugly man ... and so it was believed that he did not sit for a portrait. A possible portrait recently found at the Royal Society has now been established as being of someone else.