Hooke’s Law

2020 ◽  
pp. 207-225
Author(s):  
Brian Cantor

When a material is stretched, the extension is proportional to the stretching force, with the elastic modulus defined as the constant of proportionality. This is called Hooke’s law and was discovered by Robert Hooke, just after the end of the English civil wars in the mid-17th century. This chapter examines the underlying atomic forces responsible for Hooke’s law, the use of tensors to describe three-dimensional stresses and strains in a material, and the relationships between the different elastic moduli under different loading conditions. Hooke was the son of a clergyman, born and brought up on the Isle of Wight, a royalist stronghold, where King Charles I fled after his imprisonment by Parliament, only to be recaptured and executed. Hooke was smuggled to London and then Oxford under the protection of Royalist academics, where he became a member of the group of intellectuals who, after the restoration of the monarchy, led the Enlightenment and set up the Royal Society. He took on many jobs: Lab Assistant to Robert Boyle, Curator at the Royal Society, Professor of Geometry at Gresham’s College, City Surveyor for the rebuilding of London after the Great Fire, and First Officer in Christopher Wren’s architectural firm. He was paranoid about his need for money and about people stealing his scientific ideas. He feuded with many of the great scientists of his age, claiming that he invented their ideas first, notably with Newton about his theories of gravity.

The period which saw the foundation of the Royal Society is rich in names remarkable for original achievement in the field of science, but, if we except Newton—and his first paper appeared eleven years after the foundation of the Society which is now being celebrated—none is more noteworthy than Robert Hooke. Without any advantages of birth or influence, poor in health and poor, as a young man, in worldly goods, he carried out work of the first importance in most branches of science then known, and of one branch, meteorology, he may claim to be the founder. Not only was he outstanding as an experimenter and as the inventor of new instruments, but he had an informed imagination which led him to astonishingly correct anticipations of many advances subsequently to be made. Although to many his name is known only through Hooke’s Law, outstanding figures in the history of science have been loud in his praises. Thomas Young wrote of the ‘inexhaustible but neglected mines of nascent inventions, the works of the great Robert Hooke’, a most apt phrase, since Hooke’s work contains so much that is suggestive and original, which his restless spirit lacked time to develop.


Author(s):  
Siobhan Keenan

The Progresses, Processions, and Royal Entries of King Charles I, 1625–1642 is the first book-length study of the history, and the political and cultural significance, of the progresses, public processions, and royal entries of Charles I. As well as offering a much fuller account of the king’s progresses and progress entertainments than currently exists, this study throws new light on one of the most vexed topics in early Stuart historiography—the question of Charles I’s accessibility to his subjects and their concerns, and the part that this may, or may not, have played in the conflicts which culminated in the English civil wars and Charles’s overthrow. Drawing on extensive archival research, the book opens with an introduction to the early modern culture of royal progresses and public ceremonial as inherited and practised by Charles I. Part I explores the question of the king’s accessibility and engagement with his subjects further through case studies of Charles’s ‘great’ progresses in 1633, 1634, and 1636. Part II turns attention to royal public ceremonial culture in Caroline London, focusing on Charles’s royal entry on 25 November 1641. More widely travelled than his ancestors, Progresses reveals a monarch who was only too well aware of the value of public ceremonial and who did not eschew it, even if he was not always willing to engage in ceremonial dialogue with his people or able to deploy the power of public display to curry support for his policies as successfully as his Tudor and Stuart predecessors.


Author(s):  
W. Mark Saltzman

Mechanics is the branch of physics that is concerned with the action of forces on matter. Tissue engineers can encounter mechanics in various settings. Often, the mechanical properties of replacement biological materials must replicate the normal tissue: for example, there is limited use for a tissue-engineered bone that cannot support the load encountered by its natural counterpart. In addition, the mechanical properties of cells and cell–cell adhesions can determine the architecture of a tissue during development. This phenomenon can sometimes be exploited, since the final form of engineered tissues depends on the forces encountered during assembly and maturation. Finally, the mechanics of individual cells—and the molecular interactions that restrain cells—are important determinants of cell growth, movement, and function within an organism. This chapter introduces the basic elements of mechanics applied to biological systems. Some examples of biomechanical principles that appear to be important for tissue engineering are also provided. For further reading, comprehensive treatments of various aspects of biomechanics are also available. Consider an elongated object—for example, a segment of a biological tissue or a synthetic biomaterial—that is fixed at one end and suddenly exposed to a constant applied load. The material will change or deform in response to the load. For some materials, the deformation is instantaneous and, under conditions of low loading, deformation varies linearly with the magnitude of the applied force: . . . σ[≡F/A]= Eε (5-1) . . . where σ is the applied stress and ε is the resulting strain. This relationship is called Hooke’s law, after the British physicist Robert Hooke, and it describes the behavior of many elastic materials, such as springs, which deform linearly upon loading and recover their original shape upon removal of the load. The Young’s modulus or tensile elastic modulus, E, is a property of the material; some typical values are provided in Table 5.1. Not all elastic materials obey Hooke’s law (for example, rubber does not); some materials will recover their original shape, but strain is not linearly related to stress. Fortunately, many interesting materials do follow Equation 5-1, particularly if the deformations are small.


Author(s):  
J. Heyman

In 1675 Robert Hooke published, as one of his ‘Inventions’, a Latin anagram concerning the ‘true...form of all manner of arches for building’. His discovery was that the shape of a light flexible cord subjected to specified loads would, when inverted, give the required shape of the perfect (masonry) arch to carry those same loads. Hooke knew that the catenary curve was not given by the parabola y = ax 2 , but he was unable to solve the problem mathematically, and the decipherment of the anagram was not published until after his death. Four years earlier Hooke had stated to the Royal Society that the solution to the corresponding three–dimensional problem, that of the shape of the perfect dome, was the cubico–parabolical conoid; that is, the dome was formed by rotating the cubic parabola y = ax 3 about the y –axis. It is shown that the correct form of dome may be evaluated in terms of the integrals erf( t ) and erg( t ). Moreover, an alternative solution as a power series is rapidly convergent, and has a leading term in x 3 followed by a much smaller term in x 7 . Wren's design for the dome of St Paul's Cathedral made use of the idea of Hooke's ‘hanging chain’.


The lack of a definitive study of the life of Lord Brouncker, a spiteful remark of Pepys so often quoted against him (1), and possible confusion with his less reputable brother Henry (2), all combine to prompt an intriguing question. Why was he chosen as the first President of the Royal Society rather than John Wilkins, John Wallis, Robert Boyle or Sir Robert Moray? The wisdom of the choice was proved by the devoted and able service he gave to that high office during the infant years of the Society. William, second Viscount Brouncker of Castle Lyons, in the Irish peerage, was the elder son of Sir William Brouncker, gentleman of the privy chamber to Charles I, and vice-chamberlain to his son, Charles, Prince of Wales. ‘This loyal knight’ Wood records in his Athena Oxonienses ‘who was the son of Sir Henry Bruncker, President of Mounster in Ireland , by Anne, his wife, sister of Henry, Lord Morley, was created Viscount of Castle Lyon in the said kingdom 12 September 1645, and dying in Wadham College, in the middle of November following, was buried on the 20th of the said month.’ We know little of Brouncker’s early life, even the date of his birth, 1620, is conjectural. He was sent to Oxford at the age of sixteen, where he quickly made himself proficient in several languages. He was probably intended to follow the profession of medicine, as in 1647 he was awarded the degree of Doctor of Physick at Oxford, but his inclination led him to the study of mathematics, for which he evidently had a flair. He soon began to correspond with distinguished mathematicians, notably John Wallis, and it was not long before his reputation as a mathematician was recognized both at home and abroad.


2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ειρήνη Γκουνταρούλη

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.


Author(s):  
Margaret J. M. Ezell

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.


2013 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 48-50
Author(s):  
Michael W. Davidson

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.


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.


1971 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 72-81 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert H. Kargon

“The Office of the sense shall be the only judge of the experiment, and … the experiment itself shall judge of the thing.”Francis Bacon, The Great InstaurationThe first history of the Royal Society of London, published in 1667, and the most recent full study of that scientific organization published three centuries later, agree on one important point: that Sir Francis Bacon was the intellectual progenitor of the body, that in the denigrating words of a contemporary critic the Society was “Bacon-faced.” The author of the former, Thomas Sprat, termed Bacon the “one great Man, who had the true Imagination of the whole extent of this Enterprise,” and in “whose Books there are every where scattered the best arguments that can be produced for the defence of Experimental Philosophy.” The author of the latter, Margery Purver, agrees that “Bacon was the great formative influence on the Society's concept of science.”Yet it must be conceded at once that Bacon's legacy was ambiguous. While the early Royal Society indeed was Bacon-faced, “it saw many faces of Bacon.” The period after the founding of the Society, the 1660's and 1670's, was one of contending philosophies and of a continuing effort to fashion clearer notions of what an experimental philosophy was to be like and what role experience was to play in scientific argument. Two of the more important and influential members of the Society who were actively engaged in this pursuit were Robert Boyle and Robert Hooke; these men were, and saw themselves, as disciples of the Lord Chancellor. It is my intention here to illustrate the differing approaches to the Baconian legacy of Boyle and of Hooke by focusing attention upon an interesting analogy, used by both, which may aid us in interpreting the conception of experiment in the works of these two founders of the experimental philosophy.


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