Pioneers in Optics: Robert Hooke

2013 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 48-50
Author(s):  
Michael W. Davidson
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
Early Education ◽  
Active Role ◽  
Robert Hooke ◽  
Isle Of Wight ◽  
Robert Boyle ◽  
Oxford University ◽  
Scientific Equipment ◽  
Entire Society

Robert Hooke was a brilliant British experimental and theoretical scientist who lived and worked in London during the seventeenth century. As a child, Hooke suffered from a devastating case of smallpox that left him physically and emotionally scarred for the rest of his life. He was born the son of a minister on July 18, 1635, at Freshwater, on the Isle of Wight. Hooke's father, John Hooke, took an active role in Robert's early education until he entered the Westminster School at the age of thirteen following his father's suicide. After graduating Westminster in 1648, Hooke first conducted an apprenticeship with artist Sir Peter Lely and then entered Oxford University where he met and studied under some of the greatest scientists in England. Hooke eventually became a paid assistant for Robert Boyle and helped develop a working air pump. He remained in Boyle's laboratory until 1662 when he was made curator of experiments for the Royal Society of London, a job that entailed demonstration of scientific equipment and experimental procedures during weekly meetings of the entire society.

The Curious Eye

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erin Webster
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Human Vision ◽  
Francis Bacon ◽  
Robert Hooke ◽  
Robert Boyle ◽  
Isaac Newton ◽  
Johannes Kepler ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Historical Moment

The Curious Eye explores early modern debates over two related questions: what are the limits of human vision, and to what extent can these limits be overcome by technological enhancement? Today, in our everyday lives we rely on optical technology to provide us with information about visually remote spaces even as we question the efficacy and ethics of such pursuits. But the debates surrounding the subject of technologically mediated vision have their roots in a much older literary tradition in which the ability to see beyond the limits of natural human vision is associated with philosophical and spiritual insight as well as social and political control. The Curious Eye provides insight into the subject of optically mediated vision by returning to the literature of the seventeenth century, the historical moment in which human visual capacity in the West was first extended through the application of optical technologies to the eye. Bringing imaginative literary works by Francis Bacon, John Milton, Margaret Cavendish, and Aphra Behn together with optical and philosophical treatises by Johannes Kepler, René Descartes, Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle, and Isaac Newton, The Curious Eye explores the social and intellectual impact of the new optical technologies of the seventeenth century on its literature. At the same time, it demonstrates that social, political, and literary concerns are not peripheral to the optical science of the period but rather an integral part of it, the legacy of which we continue to experience.

scholarly journals The Saline Chymistry of Color in Seventeenth-Century English Natural History

2015 ◽  
Vol 20 (4-6) ◽  
pp. 562-588 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Marie Roos
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Natural History ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Analytical Tool ◽  
Robert Hooke ◽  
Robert Boyle ◽  
Seminal Work ◽  
Color Changes ◽  
Natural Philosophers

Before Newton’s seminal work on the spectrum, seventeenth-century English natural philosophers such as Robert Boyle, Robert Hooke, Nehemiah Grew and Robert Plot attributed the phenomenon of color in the natural world to salts and saline chymistry. They rejected Aristotelian ideas that color was related to the object’s hot and cold qualities, positing instead that saline principles governed color and color changes in flora, fauna and minerals. In our study, we also characterize to what extent chymistry was a basic analytical tool for seventeenth-century English natural historians.


The Libraries of Newton, Hooke and Boyle

1966 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 42-55 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Scientific Literature ◽  
Scientific Theories ◽  
Robert Hooke ◽  
Sir Isaac Newton ◽  
Robert Boyle ◽  
Isaac Newton ◽  
The Past ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of

The demand and search for the scientific literature of the past has grown enormously in the last twenty years. In an age as conscious as ours of the significance of science to mankind, some scientists naturally turned their thoughts to the origins of science as we know it, how scientific theories grew and how discoveries were made. Both institutions and individual scientists partake in these interests and form collections of books necessary for their study. How did their predecessors fare in this respect? They, of course, formed their libraries at a time when books were easy to find—and cheap. But what did they select for their particular reading? For example, what did the libraries of the three greatest scientists of the seventeenth century, Sir Isaac Newton, Robert Hooke and Robert Boyle, look like? Fortunately in the case of Newton, the history of his books is now fairly clear, thanks to the devoted labours of Colonel R . de Villamil (i), but it is a sad reflection on our attitude to our great intellectual leaders that this library o f the greatest English scientist, whose work changed the world for hundreds of years, was not taken care of, was, in fact, forgotten and at times entirely neglected.

Architecture, Anatomy, and the New Science in Early Modern London

2013 ◽  
Vol 72 (4) ◽  
pp. 475-502 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Walker
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Experimental Science ◽  
Robert Hooke ◽  
New Science ◽  
Early Modern London

Focuses on an important but overlooked building in late seventeenth-century London: the College of Physicians on Warwick Lane designed by the scientist and architect Robert Hooke in the 1670s. The building, which was commissioned in response to the previous college’s destruction in the Great Fire of London in 1666, was itself demolished in the nineteenth century. In this article, Matthew Walker argues that the conception and design of Hooke’s college had close links with the early Royal Society and its broader experimental philosophical program. This came about through the agency of Hooke—the society’s curator—as well as the prominence of the college’s physicians in the experimental philosophical group in its early years. By analyzing Hooke’s design for the college, and its prominent anatomy theater in particular, this article thus raises broader questions about architecture’s relationship with medicine and experimental science in early modern London.

The Mariner’s Sextant and the Royal Society

1978 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-36 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Golden Age ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
Practical Problem ◽  
Heavenly Body ◽  
Robert Hooke ◽  
Experimental Philosopher ◽  
Measuring Devices ◽  
Physical Principles

ONE would be hard pressed to name a device superior to the mariner’s sextant by which physical principles are better adapted to solve a relatively simple practical problem. The sextant, an instrument superbly elegant in its simplicity, designed merely to measure accurately the altitude of a heavenly body from a platform as unstable as the heaving deck of a ship at sea, is ideal for its purpose. The first part of this paper describes the principal altitude measuring devices employed during the Golden Age of Discoveries. It covers a period of about a quarter of a millennium from the time when Portuguese mariners under the sponsorship of Prince Henry the Navigator (1394-1460) first struck out to navigate the open Atlantic, to the time when Robert Hooke (1635-1703), the eminent experimental philosopher of the seventeenth century, first described, in 1666, a reflecting instrument for measuring altitudes at sea.

Η διαμόρφωση της έννοιας της δύναμης στη φυσική φιλοσοφία στην Αγγλία στα μέσα του 17ου αιώνα

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ειρήνη Γκουνταρούλη
Keyword(s):  
Royal Society ◽  
Thomas Hobbes ◽  
Robert Hooke ◽  
Robert Boyle ◽  
John Wilkins ◽  
Thomas Sprat

Στη διατριβή αυτή μελετάται η διαμόρφωση της έννοιας της δύναμης στον αγγλικό φιλοσοφικό λόγο στα μέσα του 17ου αιώνα. Εν ολίγοις, η μελέτη εστιάζει το ενδιαφέρον στη σημασία της διερεύνησης τόσο του ιστορικού και του διανοητικού πλαισίου όσο και των εννοιολογικών συνθηκών της περιόδου. Μίας περιόδου όπου στο επίκεντρο του αγγλικού φιλοσοφικού λόγου έρχεται η συζήτηση σχετικά με το ποια είναι η κατάλληλη φιλοσοφική γλώσσα για να περιγράψει τη φύση. Βασικό σημείο της μελέτης αυτής, είναι η σφοδρή αντίθεση για το ζήτημα της κατάλληλης φιλοσοφικής γλώσσας, η οποία αναπτύσσεται μεταξύ του Thomas Hobbes και του John Wilkins, πρώιμου μέλους της Βασιλικής Εταιρείας. Η μελέτη αντλεί τα μεθοδολογικά και θεωρητικά της εργαλεία από το πεδίο της εννοιολογικής ιστορίας (ή ιστορίας των εννοιών). Υπό αυτό το πρίσμα, η έννοια της δύναμης μελετάται με βάση τα σχετικά σημασιολογικά πεδία τα οποία εντοπίζονται στα γλωσσικά περικείμενα αφενός του Hobbes και αφετέρου των πέντε μελών της πρώιμης Βασιλικής Εταιρείας, δηλαδή, του Wilkins, του Robert Hooke, του Robert Boyle, του Thomas Sprat και του Joseph Glanvill. Με άλλα λόγια, στη μελέτη αυτή η έννοια της δύναμης δεν προσεγγίζεται απλώς ως μία συμπύκνωση μαθηματικών σχέσεων και φυσικών φιλοσοφικών τεχνικών, αλλά ως η συμπύκνωση ενός πλήθους ιστορικών, διανοητικών και σημασιολογικών σχέσεων οι οποίες εντοπίζονται σε συγκεκριμένα γλωσσικά περικείμενα. Η μελέτη λαμβάνει υπόψη της την πληθώρα των ιστοριογραφικών ρευμάτων οι οποίες σχετίζονται με την νευτώνεια έννοια της δύναμης που δρα από απόσταση. Ωστόσο, πηγαίνει πέρα από αυτές εστιάζοντας στις υπο-διαμόρφωση εννοιολογικές δομές οι οποίες σχετίζονται με την έννοια της νευτώνειας δύναμης και οι οποίες συγκροτούνται βάσει της συζήτησης περί της κατάλληλης φιλοσοφικής γλώσσας. Οι συγχρονικά ασαφείς εννοιολογικές δομές συμπυκνώνονται στη, αλλά και συγκροτούν τη διαμάχη οι οποία βασίστηκε και διαμορφώθηκε από τα αντιθετικά φιλοσοφικά μοντέλα αφενός του Thomas Hobbes και αφετέρου των πρώιμων μελών της Royal Society. Σε αυτό το πλαίσιο, ο Νεύτωνας δεν θεωρείται πνευματικό επίγονος της Royal Society, αλλά της φιλοσοφικής διαμάχης μεταξύ του Hobbes και των πρώιμων μελών της Royal Society. Όπως ακριβώς και η νευτώνεια έννοια της δύναμης που δρα από απόσταση δεν είναι η συσσώρευση μαθηματικών και φυσικών φιλοσοφικών λεπτομερειών της εποχής, αλλά αναγνωρίζεται ως η συμπύκνωση μίας πληθώρας εννοιολογικών, πνευματικών, θρησκευτικών, πολιτικών και φυσικών φιλοσοφικών σχέσεων, οι οποίες θέτουν ένα συγκεκριμένο ορίζονται πιθανών εμπειριών και θεωριών.

Creating Science: The Royal Society and the New Literatures of Science

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margaret J. M. Ezell
Keyword(s):  
Direct Observation ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Scientific Instruments ◽  
Robert Hooke ◽  
Robert Boyle ◽  
Isaac Newton ◽  
Language Of Science ◽  
John Wilkins ◽  
Thomas Sprat

An overview of the founding of the Royal Society of London and early members, including Robert Hooke, Isaac Newton, John Wilkins, Robert Boyle, and Henry Oldenburg, who first published the Philosophical Transactions. In addition to the creation and improvement of scientific instruments, including microscopes and telescopes, as recorded by their historian Thomas Sprat, the members of the Royal Society wished to create a language of science free from distorting images and metaphor and to base science on empirical experiments and direct observation. Although challenged by many for promoting an atheist understanding of the natural world, members such as Robert Boyle defended science as complementary with theology. The Society promoted publications and established networks of scientific correspondence to include members outside London and on the Continent.

Essay review. Robert Hooke under the microscope

2004 ◽  
Vol 58 (3) ◽  
pp. 299-302
Author(s):  
J. Friesen
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
Scientific Revolution ◽  
Essay Review ◽  
Founding Father ◽  
Robert Hooke ◽  
Isaac Newton ◽  
The Status ◽  
Four Books ◽  
Century Thought

Three centuries after Hooke's death his contributions to late seventeenth–century thought are only beginning to be examined in their totality. Hooke's reputation as a leading experimentalist and founding father of The Royal Society has been obscured by the success of his rival Isaac Newton and pro–Newtonian historiography that has portrayed him as the man who thought of the grand idea second, an innovative figure who vindictively accused Newton and others of plagiarism despite his own failures to publicize his discoveries or to carry his many projects to completion. These four books attempt to rescue Hooke from historical neglect. As Jardine in her biography explains, the goal is ‘to retrieve Hooke and his genius, and give him back the status he undoubtedly deserves today, as a groundbreaking thinker and brilliant experimentalist, a founding figure in the European scientific revolution’.

Frederick Slare, F. R. S. (1648-1727)

1992 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-41 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Royal Society ◽  
Young Men ◽  
17Th Century ◽  
Active Participation ◽  
Robert Hooke ◽  
Robert Boyle ◽  
Professional Activities ◽  
John Wallis ◽  
Christopher Wren

When the Royal Society was founded in 1660, its initiators were far from being young men, as one would expect remembering that the long-lived John Wallis (1616-1703) gave its origins as lying in meetings begun as long before as 1645. Fifteen years after that date, most of its founders were, in 1660, well on in their 40s; even among the original Fellows of 1663 the youngest were Christopher Wren (38 in 1660), Robert Boyle (33) and William Croone (27), nor were the first recruits to the new, formal Society younger. Hence it is not surprising that the next 20 years saw the loss through death of the majority of them, nor that those who survived into the 1680s slowly withdrew from active participation in the meetings. Even Robert Hooke, only 27 when appointed Curator of Experiments in 1662, was by 1680 well on in years by 17th-century usage, and reasonably more interested in his various professional activities than anxious to labour at performing repetitions of experiments for the edification of fellow-members.

Wilkins Lecture - Robert Hooke

1950 ◽  
Vol 137 (887) ◽  
pp. 153-187 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Robert Hooke ◽  
Robert Boyle ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Natural Philosophers ◽  
John Wallis

Science in England in the latter part of the seventeenth century is overshadowed by the mighty name of Newton, who has justly received the praises of all the great natural philosophers who came after him. In that springtime of science there were, however, in England a number of other men of genius who carried out work of prime importance—Robert Boyle; John Wallis and Isaac Barrow: Flamsteed and Halley; Willughby and Ray; Sydenham and Glisson; and Robert Hooke. Of these Robert Hooke has good claims to be considered the greatest. Probably the most inventive man who ever lived, and one of the ablest experimenters, he had a most acute mind and made astonishingly correct conjectures, based on reason, in all branches of physics. Physics, however, was far from being his only field: he is the founder of scientific meteorology; as an astronomer he has observations of great significance to his credit; he did fundamental work on combustion and respiration; he was one of the founders of modern geology. He has, moreover, a particular claim to the attention and respect of our Society, for from 1662 to 1677 he held the office of Curator and from 1677 to 1682 he was one of our Secretaries. He was always indefatigable in his services to the Society, and for a period he produced new experiments or discoveries at practically every meeting. Most writers who have really studied his work have given Hooke enthusiastic praise, yet, on account of certain difficulties of character—difficulties which he was not the only one to possess his name does not seem to be honoured as it should be among men of science in general. No one has ever devoted a book to his fife and achievements,* but he has been made the subject of casual and ill-considered criticism. It therefore seemed to me that it would be altogether fitting that I should attempt to recall to you something about this extraordinary man; about his services to science and his services to our Society.

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