ANST - FW: Musing on July 18th -- By Hooke or by Crook

[j'lynn yeates]

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- -----Original Message-----
From: Ellsworth Weaver [mailto:astroweaver at yahoo.com]
Sent: Tuesday, July 18, 2000 13:40
To: 2thpix at surfari.net
Subject: Musing on July 18th -- By Hooke or by Crook


Dear Folk,

Today, July 18, 1635, in Freshwater, Isle of Wight, England, was born
the greatest experimental scientist of the seventeenth century. His
interests spanned mathematics, physics, astronomy, chemistry,
biology,
geology, architecture, and naval technology.  He collaborated or
corresponded with scientists as diverse as Christian Huygens, Antony
van Leeuwenhoek,, Christopher Wren, Robert Boyle, and Isaac Newton.
Yet, with all that, we do not have a picture of him nor a very good
idea of his life. His name was Robert Hooke.

Bob Hooke was  educated at Westminster, and Christ Church, Oxford,
and
in 1665 became professor of geometry at Gresham College, a post which
he occupied till his death. He is still known by the law which he
discovered, that the tension exerted by a stretched string is (within
certain limits) proportional to the extension, or, in other words,
that
the stress is proportional to the strain. How many of us can say
"amen"
to that? I thought so!

Among other accomplishments, he invented the universal joint, the
iris
diaphragm, and an early prototype of the respirator; invented the
anchor escapement and the balance spring, which made more accurate
clocks possible; served as Chief Surveyor and helped rebuild London
after the Great Fire of 1666; worked out the correct theory of
combustion; assisted Robert Boyle in working out the physics of
gases;
worked out the physics of elastic materials; invented or improved
meteorological instruments such as the barometer, anemometer, and
hygrometer;

I know, you are probably saying, "Okay, that is all well and good but
what else did he do?" I shall tell you, O jaded ones. Hooke built
himself a compound microscope, a real doozy with more than one lens.
He
put everything he could think of under the lens: butterfly wings,
slices of cork, insects of all sorts, sponges, bird feathers. Not
only
did he look at them and draw them (this was before cameras), he
thought
about them. He published his book _Micrographia_ in 1665 which
included
this comment on cork:

". . . I could exceedingly plainly perceive it to be all perforated
and
porous. . . these pores, or cells, . . . were indeed the first
microscopical pores I ever saw, and perhaps, that were ever seen, for
I
had not met with any Writer or Person, that had made any mention of
them before this."

Catch that word "cells"? He was using it as in jail or monk’s
dwelling.
Yup! He named the biological cell. He was looking at what we would
call
plant cell walls. Pretty important discovery.

He did not stop there. He turned his microscope on fossils: he was
the
first to do so. Until Hooke’s time, folks believed that the earth
made
rocks to resemble living things but they were only rocks. Bob Hooke
looked at them and drew a totally different conclusion. He noted
close
similarities between the structures of petrified wood and fossil
shells
on the one hand, and living wood and living mollusc shells on the
other. He concluded that the shell-like fossils that he examined
really
were "the Shells of certain Shel-fishes, which, either by some
Deluge,
Inundation, earthquake, or some such other means, came to be thrown
to
that place." Hooke observed that many fossils represented extinct
organisms, writing "There have been many other Species of Creatures
in
former Ages, of which we can find none at present. . . 'tis not
unlikely also but that there may be divers new kinds now, which have
not been from the beginning." This was 250 odd years before Charles
Darwin.

Astronomy was also where Bob Hooke could make an impact. He was the
first person to build a Gregorian reflecting telescope. He made
important astronomical observations including the fact that Jupiter
revolves on its axis and his drawings of Mars were later used to
determine its period of rotation. In 1666 he proposed that gravity
could be measured using a pendulum.  He worked out the orbits of
planets and thought that their motion was due to their positions.
Further, he proposed that it was an effect which varied with the
inverse square of the distance. He sent this conjecture to Isaac
Newton. Hooke could not prove the theory in any demonstrable way, but
Newton did and got the credit. Hooke tried to call him on it but
Newton
won. Newton then refused to give any credit to Hooke; he even spread
nasty rumors about Bob’s life and habits.

Bob Hooke died March 3, 1703 in London, England. The bit about no
picture: some folks said he was lean, stooped and just ugly -- I
think
those folks were friends of Newton – and so did not want to sit for a
picture. Personally, I think he was just too busy.

So let us tote up what Mr. Robert Hooke gave us: the compound
microscope, watches with compensating springs, reflecting telescope,
theory of combustion, laws of compression of gases, fossils being
alive
at one time, law of elasticity, rotation of Jupiter and Mars, gravity
being an inverse square phenomenon, the universal joint (hard to have
automobiles without one), iris diaphragm (need those in cameras), a
face-sucker (excuse me, a respirator), and the biological unit, which
he discovered and named, the cell.

What have we learned about this? There is a lot to do if you just
don’t
watch television? Being bent and ugly might free up some time other
folks spend on dating? The stuff we take for granted had to be
discovered or invented sometime? Maybe we had best learn is from Sir
Isaac Newton, plagiarizing is okay as long as you call it research.

As always, you may forward these to any nascent scientists out there.
Just keep my name and sig attached. Sorry about the no killing or
maiming today. I thought some scientific slander would more than
compensate.

Notes:

Yesterday I said that Hagia Sophia is now a mosque. It isn’t. It
became
Ayasofia (Turkish), a mosque, in 1453 but is now a museum of
Byzantine
art. "Hagia" is Greek for "Holy." Thanks, for the catch to Anne
Allen,
wonderful author and classicist.

Mark Somerville, a Scientist himself, notes that Hagia Sophia is
still
an engineering marvel with a dome which was built without wooden
center
posts. Great stone cutting!

Hey, know anybody whose birthday should be noted but isn't -- maybe
yourself or your sweety? Send me an email and I would be happy to
include a quick birthday greeting in this column on the day of their
birth.  Might make a nice keepsake. Maybe not. *G*

Researching thoroughly,
J. Ellsworth Weaver

SCA – Sir Balthazar of Endor
AS – Polyphemus Theognis
TRV – Sebastian Yeats


=====
SmileWeavers Astrology Charts & Interpretations
Modern & Medieval (but always discreet)
If you are interested, contact me at
astroweaver at yahoo.com or 805.473.8867

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