Hooke's microscope, from an engraving in
Micrographia.
Robert Hooke, FRS (July 18, 1635 – March 3, 1703) was an English polymath who played an important role in the scientific revolution, through both experimental and theoretical work.
[edit] Early life
Hooke's drawing of a
flea
Robert Hooke was fascinated by the sciences, particularly biology from his early childhood. His father was John Hooke, curate of the Church of All Saints, Freshwater. Like his three other brothers (all ministers), Robert was expected to succeed in his education and join his father's church. However, Hooke continually suffered from headaches while studying. His parents, fearing he would not reach adulthood, decided to give up on his education and leave him to his own devices.
Born in Freshwater on the Isle of Wight, Hooke received his early education on the Isle of Wight and, from about the age of 13, at Westminster School under Dr. Busby. In 1653, Hooke secured a chorister's place at Christ Church, Oxford. [1]There he met the chemist (and physicist) Robert Boyle, and gained employment as his assistant. It is possible that Hooke formally stated Boyle's Law, as Boyle was not a mathematician.
Robert Hooke was the first person to use the word "cell" to describe the basic unit of life.
[edit] Career
Hooke's microscope (M-030 00276) Courtesy - Billings Microscope Collection, National Museum of Health and Medicine, AFIP
In 1660, he discovered Hooke's law of elasticity, which describes the linear variation of tension with extension in an elastic spring. In 1662, Hooke gained appointment as Curator of Experiments to the newly founded Royal Society, and took responsibility for experiments performed at its meetings. His work on elasticity culminated, for practical purposes, in his development of the balance spring or hairspring, which for the first time enabled a portable timepiece - a watch - to keep time with reasonable accuracy. A bitter dispute between Hooke and Christiaan Huygens on the priority of this invention was to continue for centuries after the death of both; but a note dated 12 June 1670 in the Hooke Folio (see External links below), describing a demonstration of a balance-controlled watch before the Royal Society, has been held to favour Hooke's claim.
In 1665 he published a book entitled Micrographia which contained a number of microscopic and telescopic observations, and some original observations in biology. Hooke coined the biological term cell, so called because his observations of plant cells reminded him of monks' cells which were called "cellula." He is often credited with the discovery of the cell, although his microscope was very basic.
The hand-crafted, leather and gold-tooled microscope that Hooke used to make the observations for Micrographia, originally made by Christopher Cock in London, is on display at the National Museum of Health and Medicine in Washington, DC. Also in 1665 he gained appointment as Professor of Geometry at Gresham College. Hooke also achieved fame as Surveyor to the City of London and chief assistant of Christopher Wren, helping to rebuild London after the Great Fire in 1666. He worked on designing the Monument, Royal Greenwich Observatory and the infamous Bethlem Royal Hospital (which became known as 'Bedlam').
On July 8, 1680, Hooke was able to see the nodal patterns associated with the modes of vibration of glass plates. Hooke ran a bow along the edge of a glass plate covered with flour, and saw the nodal patterns emerge.[2][3]
He died in London on 3 March 1703 (ns). He amassed a sizeable sum of money during his career in London, which was found in his room at Gresham College after his death. He never married.
[edit] Likeness
No undisputed portrait of Robert Hooke exists, a fact that is sometimes attributed to the conflicts between Hooke and Isaac Newton.
A memorial window[4] existed at St Helen's Bishopsgate, but it was a formulaic rendering, not a likeness. It was destroyed in the 1993 Bishopsgate bombing.
In 2003 historian Lisa Jardine claimed that a recently discovered portrait was of Hooke[5], 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.[6] 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.
The engraved frontispiece to the 1728 edition of Chambers' Cyclopedia shows a drawing of a bust of Robert Hooke.[7] The extent to which the drawing is based on an actual work of art is unknown.
[edit] Hooke the architect
The church at Willen, Milton Keynes.
Hooke was an important architect. He was the official London Surveyor after the Great Fire of 1666, surveying about half the plots in the city. As well as the Bethlem Royal Hospital, other buildings designed by Hooke include: The Royal College of Physicians (1679); Ragley Hall in Warwickshire; and the parish church at Willen, Milton Keynes (historical Buckinghamshire).
Hooke's collaboration with Christopher Wren was particularly fruitful and yielded The Royal Observatory at Greenwich, The Monument (to the Great Fire) and St Paul's Cathedral, whose dome uses a method of construction conceived by Hooke.
In the reconstruction after the Great Fire, Hooke proposed redesigning London's streets on a grid pattern with wide boulevards and arteries (a pattern subsequently used in the renovation of Paris, Liverpool and many American cities), but was prevented by problems over property rights. Many property owners were surreptitiously shifting their boundaries and disputes were rife. (Hooke was in demand to use his competence as a surveyor and tact as an arbitrator to settle many of these disputes.) The result was that London was rebuilt along the original medieval streets.
- The Man Who Knew Too Much, Stephen Inwood, Pan Books, 2002. ISBN 0-330-48829-5. (Published in the USA as The Forgotten Genius)
- Early Science in Oxford vol vii, Dr. R. T. Gunther, ed., privately printed, 1923-67.
- Robert Hooke, Margaret 'Espinasse. William Heinemann Ltd, 1956.
- The Curious Life of Robert Hooke: The Man who Measured London, Lisa Jardine. Harper Collins Publishers, 2003. ISBN 0-00-714944-1.
- London's Leonardo: The Life and Work of Robert Hooke, Jim Bennett, Michael Cooper, Michael Hunter and Lisa Jardine. Oxford University Press, 2003. ISBN 0-19-852579-6.
- England's Leonardo: Robert Hooke and the Seventeenth-century Scientific Revolution, Allan Chapman. Institute of Physics Publishing, 2004. ISBN 0-7503-0987-3.
- Robert Hooke and the English Renaissance, Allan Chapman and Paul Kent (editors). Gracewing, 2005. ISBN 0-85244-587-3.
- Hooke, Robert (1635-1703). Micrographia: or some physiological descriptions of minute bodies made by magnifying glasses with observations and inquiries thereupon...
