Small biography of robert hooke micrographia
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After Hooke, naturalists could no longer rely solely on the unaided human eye when they investigated the natural world.
Mite. It is hard to feel comfortable with Hooke’s behaviour towards his niece and servants, and of course the women’s feelings on the matter are not recorded. His powerful body odour was also noted.
Death and burial
From 1696 Hooke’s health deteriorated, and he suffered from swollen legs, chest pains, dizziness, emaciation and blindness.
Later, in 1665 he was appointed Gresham Professor of Geometry and Fellow of the Royal Society.
Scientific research
Hooke’s nearly 40 years of scientific research covered an astonishing breadth.
Early inquiries included the nature of the air and its relationship to respiration and combustion; the laws of falling bodies; improvements to diving-bells; methods of telegraphy; the relationship of barometric readings to the weather; fixing the thermometrical zero at the freezing-point of water and the invention of a machine for cutting gear-wheels.
Hooke suggested many hypotheses based on his experiments that would anticipate later discoveries.
Pp. 1–5. He was always very pale and lean, and laterly nothing but Skin and Bone, with a meagre aspect, his eyes grey and full, with a sharp ingenious Look whilst younger; his nose but thin, of a moderate height and length; his mouth meanly wise, and upper lip thin; his chin sharp, and Forehead large; his Head of a middle size.
In his Attempt to Prove the Motion of the Earth (1674), Hooke offered a theory of planetary motion based on the correct principle of inertia and a balance between an outward centrifugal force and an inward gravitational attraction to the Sun. In 1679, in a letter to Newton, he finally suggested that this attraction would vary inversely as the square of the distance from the Sun.
Hooke’s theory was qualitatively correct, but he did not have the mathematical ability to give it an exact, quantitative expression.
Hooke's book came about through his involvement in the Royal Society in London.
Hooke began life as a sickly child blessed with an active and inventive mind. His memorial stone in Westminster Abbey can be found in the lantern area, near Busby’s grave.
This biography draws on Collins Biographical Dictionary of Scientists: HarperCollins 1994; and to the marvellous lecture and article by Allan Chapman (Wadham College, Oxford): ‘England’s Leonardo: Robert Hooke and the art of experiment in Restoration England’ Proceedings of the Royal Institution, 67, 239-275, 1996.
A portrait, owned by the Royal Society, did exist, but it disappeared in 1717 when the society moved into permanent premises. This assignment was timely, as Hooke had already been thinking about publishing his drawings and observations, although with a wider scope beyond his initial demonstrations and discussions within the society.
In his work for Micrographia this brilliant man explored the microscopic world, drew what he saw and theorized about it, so that his book goes far beyond being a mere descriptive presentation of what he saw through his microscope.
In 1658 he became assistant to Robert Boyle, where he used his mechanical skills to construct an improved version of the air pump of Otto Guericke. [CD-ROM.]
Hooke, R. 1665. Image source: Hooke, Robert. . Pp. 85–110.
The Micrographia plates are available as a PDF.
Other resources
For biographical citations for this subject, see the Hunt Institute Archives Register of Botanical Biography and Iconography database.
The entire book is accessible at the Biodiversity Heritage Library Web site.
Early life
Robert Hooke was born in the village of Freshwater on the western toe of the Isle of Wight, the son of Cecily Gyles and John Hooke, a curate at All Saints’ Church.
When the project was proposed to Wren, he was no longer interested, being involved in other work, and so the project was given to Hooke. Later, in 1672, he suggested that the vibrations in light might be perpendicular to the direction of propagation. He was the son of a churchman and was apparently largely educated at home by his father.
When the influential Newton – and his grudge – survived Hooke by 23 years, respect for Hooke’s work and achievements began to fade, partly due to Newton’s belittling of Hooke’s reputation.
If Hooke’s work on gravitation was overshadowed by that of Newton, he was unsurpassed as an inventor and designer of scientific instruments.