ROBERT HOOKE
A slender, crooked, shrivelled-limbed, cantankerous little man,
with dishevelled hair and haggard countenance, bad-tempered and
irritable, penurious and dishonest, at least in his claims for
priority in discoveries--this is the picture usually drawn, alike
by friends and enemies, of Robert Hooke (1635-1703), a man with
an almost unparalleled genius for scientific discoveries in
almost all branches of science. History gives few examples so
striking of a man whose really great achievements in science
would alone have made his name immortal, and yet who had the
pusillanimous spirit of a charlatan--an almost insane mania, as
it seems--for claiming the credit of discoveries made by others.
This attitude of mind can hardly be explained except as a mania:
it is certainly more charitable so to regard it. For his own
discoveries and inventions were so numerous that a few more or
less would hardly have added to his fame, as his reputation as a
philosopher was well established. Admiration for his ability and
his philosophical knowledge must always be marred by the
recollection of his arrogant claims to the discoveries of other
philosophers.
It seems pretty definitely determined that Hooke should be
credited with the invention of the balance-spring for regulating
watches; but for a long time a heated controversy was waged
between Hooke and Huygens as to who was the real inventor. It
appears that Hooke conceived the idea of the balance-spring,
while to Huygens belongs the credit of having adapted the COILED
spring in a working model. He thus made practical Hooke's
conception, which is without value except as applied by the
coiled spring; but, nevertheless, the inventor, as well as the
perfector, should receive credit. In this controversy, unlike
many others, the blame cannot be laid at Hooke's door.
Hooke was the first curator of the Royal Society, and when
anything was to be investigated, usually invented the mechanical
devices for doing so. Astronomical apparatus, instruments for
measuring specific weights, clocks and chronometers, methods of
measuring the velocity of falling bodies, freezing and boiling
points, strength of gunpowder, magnetic instruments--in short,
all kinds of ingenious mechanical devices in all branches of
science and mechanics. It was he who made the famous air-pump of
Robert Boyle, based on Boyle's plans. Incidentally, Hooke claimed
to be the inventor of the first air-pump himself, although this
claim is now entirely discredited.
Within a period of two years he devised no less than thirty
different methods of flying, all of which, of course, came to
nothing, but go to show the fertile imagination of the man, and
his tireless energy. He experimented with electricity and made
some novel suggestions upon the difference between the electric
spark and the glow, although on the whole his contributions in
this field are unimportant. He also first pointed out that the
motions of the heavenly bodies must be looked upon as a
mechanical problem, and was almost within grasping distance of
the exact theory of gravitation, himself originating the idea of
making use of the pendulum in measuring gravity. Likewise, he
first proposed the wave theory of light; although it was Huygens
who established it on its present foundation.
Hooke published, among other things, a book of plates and
descriptions of his Microscopical Observations, which gives an
idea of the advance that had already been made in microscopy in
his time. Two of these plates are given here, which, even in this
age of microscopy, are both interesting and instructive. These
plates are made from prints of Hooke's original copper plates,
and show that excellent lenses were made even at that time. They
illustrate, also, how much might have been accomplished in the
field of medicine if more attention had been given to microscopy
by physicians. Even a century later, had physicians made better
use of their microscopes, they could hardly have overlooked such
an easily found parasite as the itch mite, which is quite as
easily detected as the cheese mite, pictured in Hooke's book.
In justice to Hooke, and in extenuation of his otherwise
inexcusable peculiarities of mind, it should be remembered that
for many years he suffered from a painful and wasting disease.
This may have affected his mental equilibrium, without
appreciably affecting his ingenuity. In his own time this
condition would hardly have been considered a disease; but
to-day, with our advanced ideas as to mental diseases, we should
be more inclined to ascribe his unfortunate attitude of mind to a
pathological condition, rather than to any manifestation of
normal mentality. From this point of view his mental deformity
seems not unlike that of Cavendish's, later, except that in the
case of Cavendish it manifested itself as an abnormal
sensitiveness instead of an abnormal irritability.
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