|
|
Article: Death of Robert Hooke: March 3rd, 1703. (Months Past).
- Article from:
- History Today
- Article date:
- March 1, 2003
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2003 History Today Ltd. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
|
ONE OF THE most brilliant and versatile figures of his time, Robert Hooke (1635-1703) died a disappointed man. His own law, Hooke's Law, has to do with elasticity, but he brought a piercing intelligence and inventiveness to bear on a remarkable range of fields--anatomy, astronomy, geometry and geology among them--at a time when science was young and not yet compartmentalised. Hooke proved the rotation of Jupiter on its axis and determined the rotation period of Mars. He discovered that light rays bend round corners (diffraction) and put forward the wave theory of light to account for it. He investigated the action of the lungs and identified the role of air in combustion. ...