75 Facts About Robert Hooke

Robert Hooke was an English polymath who was active as a physicist, astronomer, geologist, meteorologist and architect.

Robert Hooke is credited as one of the first scientists to investigate living things at microscopic scale in 1665, using a compound microscope that he designed.

Robert Hooke was a Fellow of the Royal Society and from 1662, he was its first Curator of Experiments.

Robert Hooke built the vacuum pumps that were used in Boyle's experiments on gas law and conducted experiments.

In 1664, Robert Hooke identified the rotations of Mars and Jupiter.

Robert Hooke's is the first-recorded hypothesis of the cause of the expansion of matter by heat, of air's composition by small particles in constant motion that thus generate its pressure, and of heat as energy.

In physics, Robert Hooke inferred that gravity obeys an inverse square law and arguably was the first to hypothesise such a relation in planetary motion, a principle Isaac Newton furthered and formalised in Newton's law of universal gravitation.

In geology and palaeontology, Robert Hooke originated the theory of a terraqueous globe, thus disputing the Biblical view of the Earth's age; he hypothesised the extinction of species, and argued hills and mountains had become elevated by geological processes.

Robert Hooke was born in 1635 in Freshwater, Isle of Wight, to Cecily Gyles and the Anglican priest John Robert Hooke, who was the curate of All Saints' Church, Freshwater.

Robert Hooke was the youngest, by seven years, of four siblings ; he was frail and not expected to live.

Robert Hooke had "some instruction in drawing" from the limner Samuel Cowper but "the smell of the Oil Colours did not agree with his Constitution, increasing his Head-ache to which he was ever too much subject", and he became a pupil at Westminster School, living with its master Richard Busby.

Robert Hooke quickly mastered Latin, Greek and Euclid's Elements; he learnt to play the organ and began his lifelong study of mechanics.

Robert Hooke remained an accomplished draughtsman, as he was later to demonstrate in his drawings that illustrate the work of Robert Boyle and Hooke's own Micrographia.

In 1653, Robert Hooke secured a place at Christ Church, Oxford, receiving free tuition and accommodation as an organist and a chorister, and a basic income as a servitor, despite the fact he did not officially matriculate until 1658.

In 1662, Robert Hooke was awarded a Master of Arts degree.

In 1659, Robert Hooke described to the Club some elements of a method of heavier-than-air flight but concluded human muscles were insufficient to the task.

Robert Hooke characterised his Oxford days as the foundation of his lifelong passion for science.

In 1655, Boyle moved to Oxford and Robert Hooke became nominally his assistant but in practice his co-experimenter.

Robert Hooke developed an air pump for Boyle's experiments rather than use Ralph Greatorex's pump, which Robert Hooke considered as "too gross to perform any great matter".

Robert Hooke's engine enabled the development of the eponymous law that was attributed to Boyle; Robert Hooke had a particularly keen eye and was an adept mathematician, neither of which applied to Boyle.

Robert Hooke taught Boyle Euclid's Elements and Descartes's Principles of Philosophy; it caused them to recognise fire as a chemical reaction and not, as Aristotle taught, a fundamental element of nature.

For example, Arthur Berry said Robert Hooke "claimed credit for most of the scientific discoveries of the time".

Robert Hooke interacted with noted artisans such as clock-maker Thomas Tompion and instrument-maker Christopher Cocks.

Robert Hooke often met Christopher Wren, with whom he shared many interests, and had a lasting friendship with John Aubrey.

Robert Hooke's diaries make frequent reference to meetings at coffeehouses and taverns, as well as to dinners with Robert Boyle.

On many occasions, Robert Hooke took tea with his lab assistant Harry Hunt.

Since childhood, Robert Hooke suffered from migraine, tinnitus, dizziness and bouts of insomnia; he had a spinal deformity that was consistent with a diagnosis of Scheuermann's kyphosis, giving him in middle and later years a "thin and crooked body, over-large head and protruding eyes".

Robert Hooke regularly used sal ammoniac, emetics, laxatives and opiates, which appear to have had an increasing effect on his physical and mental health over time.

Robert Hooke's library contained over 3,000 books in Latin, French, Italian and English.

Robert Hooke was buried at St Helen's Church, Bishopsgate, in the City of London but the precise location of his grave is unknown.

Robert Hooke demonstrated that a dog could be kept alive with its thorax opened, provided air was pumped in and out of its lungs.

Robert Hooke noted the difference between venous and arterial blood, and thus demonstrated that the and [flames] were the same thing.

One of the most-challenging problems Robert Hooke investigated was the measurement of the distance from Earth to a star other than the Sun.

Robert Hooke selected the star Gamma Draconis and chose the method of parallax determination.

In 1669, after several months of observing, Robert Hooke believed the desired result had been achieved.

Robert Hooke's Micrographia contains illustrations of the Pleiades star cluster and lunar craters.

Robert Hooke conducted experiments to investigate the formation of these craters and concluded their existence meant the Moon must have its own gravity, a radical departure from the contemporaneous Aristotelian celestial model.

Robert Hooke was an early observer of the rings of Saturn, and discovered one of the first-observed double-star systems Gamma Arietis in 1664.

Robert Hooke was dissatisfied with refracting telescopes so he built the first practical Gregorian telescope that used a silvered glass mirror.

In 1660, Robert Hooke discovered the law of elasticity that bears his name and describes the linear variation of tension with extension in an elastic spring.

Robert Hooke's announcement of his law of elasticity using an anagram was a method scientists, such as Robert Hooke, Huygens and Galileo, sometimes used to establish priority for a discovery without revealing details.

Robert Hooke used mechanical analogues to understand fundamental processes such as the motion of a spherical pendulum and of a ball in a hollow cone, to demonstrate central force due to gravity, and a hanging chain net with point loads to provide the optimum shape for a dome with heavy cross on top.

In November 1679, Robert Hooke initiated a notable exchange of letters with Newton that was published in 1960.

Robert Hooke wanted to discern how Newton thought the falling body could experimentally reveal the Earth's motion by its direction of deviation from the vertical but Robert Hooke went on hypothetically to consider how its motion could continue if the solid Earth had not been in the way, on a spiral path to the centre.

Robert Hooke disagreed with Newton's idea of the body's continuing motion.

In 1686, when the first book of Newton's Principia was presented to the Royal Society, Robert Hooke said he had given Newton the "notion" of "the rule of the decrease of Gravity, being reciprocally as the squares of the distances from the Center".

Whilst Newton was primarily a pioneer in mathematical analysis and its applications, and optical experimentation, Robert Hooke was a creative experimenter of such great range who left some of his ideas, such as those about gravitation, undeveloped.

Robert Hooke made important contributions to the science of timekeeping and was intimately involved in the advances of his time; these included refinement of the pendulum as a better regulator for clocks, increased precision of clock mechanisms and the use of the balance spring to improve the timekeeping of watches.

Galileo had observed the regularity of a pendulum and Huygens first incorporated it in a clock; in 1668, Robert Hooke demonstrated his new device to keep a pendulum swinging regularly in unsteady conditions.

Robert Hooke announced he conceived a way to build a marine chronometer to determine longitude.

Robert Hooke developed the principle of the balance spring independently of Huygens and at least five years beforehand.

In 1663 and 1664, Robert Hooke made his microscopic, and some astronomic, observations, which he collated in Micrographia in 1665.

Robert Hooke coined the term "cell", suggesting a resemblance between plant structures and honeycomb cells.

Robert Hooke's work developed from that of Henry Power, who published his microscopy work in Experimental Philosophy ; in turn, the Dutch scientist Antonie van Leeuwenhoek went on to develop increased magnification and so reveal protozoa, blood cells and spermatozoa.

Robert Hooke's experiments led him to conclude combustion involves a component of air, a statement with which modern scientists would agree but that was not understood widely, if at all, in the seventeenth century.

Robert Hooke concluded respiration and combustion involve a specific and limited component of air.

One of the observations in Micrographia is of fossil wood, the microscopic structure of which Robert Hooke compared to that of ordinary wood.

Robert Hooke ran a bow along the edge of a flour-covered glass plate and saw the nodal patterns emerge.

Robert Hooke was Surveyor to the City of London and chief assistant to Christopher Wren, in which capacities he helped Wren rebuild London after the Great Fire of 1666.

Robert Hooke designed the Monument to the Great Fire of London, Montagu House in Bloomsbury and Bethlem Royal Hospital, which became known as "Bedlam".

Robert Hooke collaborated with Wren on the design of St Paul's Cathedral; Hooke determined the ideal shape of an arch is an inverted catenary and thence that a circular series of such arches makes an ideal shape for the cathedral's dome.

Robert Hooke was given the task of surveying the ruins to identify foundations, street edges and property boundaries.

Robert Hooke was closely involved with the drafting of an Act of Common Council, which set out the process by which the original foundations would be formally recognised and certificated.

Stephen Inwood said: "the surveyors' reports, which were generally written by Robert Hooke, show an admirable ability to get to the nub of intricate neighbourly squabbles, and to produce a crisp and judicious recommendation from a tangle of claims and counter-claims".

Robert Hooke had to measure and certify land that would be compulsorily purchased for the planned road widening so compensation could be paid.

German antiquarian and scholar Zacharias Conrad von Uffenbach visited the Royal Society in 1710 and his account of his visit mentions him being shown portraits of "Boyle and Hoock", which were said to be good likenesses but, while Boyle's portrait survives, Robert Hooke's has been lost.

Conversely, Chapman draws attention to the fact that Waller's extensively illustrated work, Posthumous works of Robert Hooke, published shortly after Hooke's death, has no portrait of him.

Two contemporaneous, written descriptions of Robert Hooke's appearance have survived; his close friend John Aubrey described him in middle age and at the height of his creative powers:.

Robert Hooke is but of midling stature, something crooked, pale faced, and his face but little below, but his head is lardge, his eie full and popping, and not quick; a grey eie.

Robert Hooke is and ever was temperate and moderate in dyet, etc.

Richard Waller, writing in 1705 in The Posthumous Works of Robert Hooke, described the elderly Hooke:.

Robert Hooke 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 wide, and upper lip thin; his Chin sharp, and Forehead large; his Head of a middle size.

Montagu found the two contemporaneous written descriptions of Robert Hooke's appearance agree with one another but that neither matches the portrait in Time.

In 2003, the amateur painter Rita Greer embarked on a project to memorialise Robert Hooke and produce credible images of him, both painted and drawn, she believes match Aubrey's and Waller's the descriptions of him.

Greer's images of Robert Hooke, which are free to use under the Free Art License, have been used for television programmes in the UK and the US, in books, magazines and for public relations.