A great inventor, almost legendary
The Curious Life of Robert Hooke: The Man Who Measured London
By Lisa Jardine
HarperCollins, 422 pp., illustrated, $27.95
The achievements of 17th-century English scientist and inventor Robert Hooke are vast, but fate has relegated him to the role of second fiddle. Though he was appointed London's chief surveyor after the Great Fire of 1666, we praise Hooke's friend and partner Christopher Wren for rebuilding the city.
Hooke's notions about gravity anticipated Isaac Newton's findings in his great "Principia Mathematica"; yet while everyone knows about Newton and his apple, poor Hooke hardly rates a mention in the annals of scientific inquiry.
Hooke's low standing is partly due to his "strange unsociable temper," as Newton, his bitter rival, put it. Hooke's mercurial disposition tested the patience of even his close friends. Hooke had no talent for the arts of self-promotion, and he needlessly antagonized potential collaborators, which cut him off from buzzing scientific circles that thrived on cooperation and note trading. But for all his faults, Hooke was undoubtedly one of the great polymaths of his age. Tallying his achievements makes your head spin. From chemistry and clock making to architecture and inventing, mathematics and monuments, the recklessly unspecialized Hooke combined practical genius with a formidable intellect.
If Hooke has hitherto languished in obscurity, he has found a modern-day champion in Lisa Jardine, an English academic and prolific scholar of the scientific revolution. Jardine's sympathetic, generous, judiciously critical portrait, "The Curious Life of Robert Hooke," is a fine addition to the recent flurry of books about this period in English scientific history.
Hooke was born in 1635 on the Isle of Wight. As a young man he received mathematical training in London, and then went up to Oxford in 1653 on scholarship. There he met Wren, and fell in with neurologist Thomas Willis and biochemistry pioneer Robert Boyle; together, the three formed the nucleus of the Oxford Experimental Philosophy Club.
Jardine expertly fills in the historical context of an England wracked by civil war and polarizing strife. Hooke, like his compatriots, was a royalist, loyal to the deposed king, and a devout Anglican. They saw their work as a complement to their religious beliefs: Science was a way to God.
Hooke's natural talent as a maker of precision scientific instruments dazzled his colleagues. He crafted intricately wrought clocks, navigation devices, and microscopes. (Friend and literary man John Aubrey proclaimed Hooke "certainly the greatest mechanick this day in the world.")
This reputation would secure Hooke's place in London, where he went after graduation. Using his Oxford connections, Hooke lined up commission after commission, and in 1662 was made curator of experiments at the newly established Royal Society. But Hooke's promotion was both blessing and curse. He was a man who found it impossible to say no: As Jardine writes, he "would promise too much, to too many people, in too many walks of life, leaving tasks unfulfilled, problems half solved, friends, clients and patrons disappointed."
Hooke was a pig-headed fellow, rightfully proud of his achievements, but also arrogant. Always spoiling for a fight, he saw potential rivals everywhere. Still, his reputation continued to grow. In 1665, he published his landmark work "Micrographia," which opened a new vista onto previously invisible worlds. The book's engravings, done by Hooke, show in stunning detail everything from a point of a needle to a louse.
After the Great Fire destroyed London, Hooke and Wren set to work on their formidable task. Jardine makes it clear that he was not merely Wren's junior partner -- he was his full equal, even if history hasn't seen it that way. Hooke's engineering skills, his understanding of the fine print of building codes, and his architectural insight were invaluable.
In the 1670s, Hooke's health took a turn for the worse. Prone to crippling bouts of melancholy and hypochondria, he began to drug himself, which only increased his paranoid tendencies. But he worked on. He pursued his notions of gravitational pull, which would lead to a clash with Newton. Jardine handles the episode delicately. Hooke and Newton had exchanged ideas; Hooke believed he prompted Newton in his speculations. The dispute came to a head in 1686, just before Newton was to publish his "Principia." Hooke averred it was he, not Newton, who had first mooted the inverse laws of gravitational pull. While reminding us that Newton was nasty, unforgiving, and deeply competitive, Jardine notes that Hooke simply did not possess the skills to transform his hunches into equations. He was a "tester of practical outcomes, " not a theorist. Without proof, Hooke had no case; the Royal Society took Newton's side in the spat, which left Hooke raging and bitter.
Hooke's final years make for painful reading. Abandoned by his colleagues and hopelessly addicted to his toxic concoctions, he slowly wasted away. Jardine's biography, however, is a wonderful testament to this sad man's unacknowledged greatness, one that spurs us to grant Hooke the recognition he surely deserves.
Matthew Price is a regular contributor to the Globe. 