The First Professional Scientist: Robert Hooke and the Royal Society of London

292 Pages·2009·4.81 MB·English

by  Robert D. Purrington (auth.)

Science Networks . Historical Studies
Founded by Erwin Hiebert and Hans Wußing
Volume 39
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Robert D. Purrington
The First
Professional Scientist

Robert Hooke
and the Royal Society of London
Birkhäuser
Basel · Boston · Berlin
Author:
Robert D. Purrington
Tulane University
Dept. Physics
New Orleans, LA 70118
USA
e-mail: [email protected]
Library of Congress Control Number: 2009920472
Bibliographic information published by Die Deutsche Bibliothek
Die Deutsche Bibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie;
detailed bibliographic data is available in the Internet at http://dnb.ddb.de
ISBN 978-3-0346-0036-1 Birkhäuser Verlag AG, Basel - Boston - Berlin
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Cover illustration: Plate from Hooke’s published Cutler Lecture “Animadversions on the First Part
of the Machina Coelestis ...” showing an equatorial quadrant driven by a conical or circular pendu-
lum. See also p. 210.
Printed in Germany
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To Loraine
Contents
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi
Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii
Annotations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xviii
1 RestoringRobertHooke . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
HookeandLondon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Annotations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
2 RobertHooke,IndefaticableGenius:HookeandLondon . . . . . . . 13
TheDiary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
HookeandWren . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
Annotations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
3 PromotingPhysico-Mathematical-ExperimentalLearning:
FoundingtheRoyalSocietyofLondon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
Annotations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
4 SocietyoftheMuses:TheFirstDecade . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
FocusedEnergies:TheLawsofMotion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
ConcludingtheFirstDecade . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
Annotations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
5 CrisisandConsolidation:1672–1687 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
Annotations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
6 TheSocietyAfterthePrincipia:1688–1703 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
Annotations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
viii Contents
7 ScientificVirtuoso:Hooke1655–1687 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
FirstDiscoveries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
HookeandtheRoyalSociety,1662–1677 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
HookeandOldenburg,1675–1677 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
HookeandtheSocietyafterOldenburg;1677–1687 . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
“RestlessGenius:”HookeasScientist . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
TheHookeFolio,2006 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
Conclusion:Micrographia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
Annotations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
8 AndAllWasLight:HookeandNewtononLightandColor . . . . . . 135
Hooke’sTheoryofLight . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
Newton’sTheory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
Debateafter1672 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140
Annotations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144
9 TheNatureofThingsThemselves:
RobertHooke,NaturalPhilosopher . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
Hooke’sNaturalPhilosophy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150
Light;Matter,andMotion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
NaturalPhilosophyandNewton . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
Annotations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160
10 TheSystemoftheWorld:HookeandUniversalGravitation,
theInverse-squareLaw,andPlanetaryOrbits . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
Introduction:HookeandPlanetaryDynamics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
HalleyandNewton . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
Huygens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
HookeandUniversalGravitation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174
HookeandNewton,1679 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
Hooke’s“LawsofCircularMotion” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182
Newton,Gravitation,andtheKeplerProblem,1665–1987 . . . . . . . . . 187
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189
Annotations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190
Contents ix
11 TheOmnipotenceoftheCreator:RobertHooke,Astronomer . . . . 203
TelescopesandOptics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205
HookeAsAnObserver . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207
Comets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214
StellarParallax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220
Annotations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220
12 TheLastRemain:HookeAfterthePrincipia,1687–1703 . . . . . . . 227
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227
HookeandNewton . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229
1687–1703 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231
Annotations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237
Epilogue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241
Legacy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247
Annotations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 248
Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 265
Acknowledgments
ThisbookhaditsgenesisinaNewtonsymposiumwhichIhostedwiththelateFrank
EddingtonDurhamatthetercentenaryofthePrincipiain1987aswellasinaquarter-
centuryofdiscussionswithProfessorDurhamonthehistoryofphysicsingeneraland
theseventeenthcenturyinparticular.Hisinsightshavebeeninvaluableanditistohim
thatIowemygreatestdebt.
Iwouldespeciallyliketothanktheveryableandhelpfulstaffofthelibraryof
theRoyalSociety,andinparticularthelibrarians,KarenPetersandKeithMoore.Ms.
Peters was librarian when I began this project and Mr. Moore helped me finish it. I
particularlythankhimforprovidingmewithadigitalcopyofthe2006Hookefolio
beforeitwasmadegenerallyavailable.IalsothanktheGuildhallLibraryoftheCity
of London, the British Museum Library, the Science Library, and the Imperial Col-
legelibrary,fortheirexpertassistanceandcooperation.Iwouldfurtherliketothank
Tulane University for a sabbaticalleave in the spring of 1999 which allowed me to
searchthearchivesoftheRoyalSocietyandtheGuildhallLibrary,thustoencounter
someoftheprimarysourcesforthisworkforthefirsttime.Othervisitstoresources
in the UK overthelast decadeanda half– mostparticularlythe entire1992–3aca-
demic year – were also supportedin whole or in part by the university. In addition,
thanks are due the staff of the Howard-Tilton Library at Tulane for their patience,
professionalism,anddedicationinbuildingavaluablecollectionofsecondaryworks
on seventeenthcentury science. I owe a special debt to Eleanor Elder. I would also
like to thank my editor at Birkha¨user, Karin Neidhart, for her help in bringing this
projecttocompletion.
AfurtherdebtisowedtoseveralhistoriansandscientistswithwhomIhavehad
fruitfulconversations,somebrief,somelengthy.Inparticular,Iacknowledgediscus-
sions with Michael Nauenberg,Lisa Jardine, MichaelCooper,MordechaiFeingold,
EllenTanDrake,andHentieLouwwhichhaveprovidedimportantinsights.