Robert Hooke (18th July 1635—3rd March 1703) was a Fellow of the Royal Society, Architect, Surveyor, Astro-nomer, Scientist, Inventor, Musician, Mechanic, Professor of Geometry, Philosopher, Linguist.
Hooke was involved in a wide variety of scientific endeavours, he was a member of a circle of the greatest scientists of the seventeenth century, but despite a list of important inventions and discoveries, his memory has been almost wiped from the popular history of science by the followers of Newton, Wren, Boyle and Huygens, who argued with him, and rubbished his theories, possibly contributing to his later ill health.
He had natural gift for learning very quickly, and impressive dexterity. Which led him to excel at making all manner of mechanical apparatus, Indeed at one stage he even greatly improved the best water pumps in England, during a brief visit to the cambridge fens, in just a few days, with no previous preparation.
His professional science career, began as an assistant to Dr. Thomas Willis and later Robert Boyle, and he was also assistant to the Royal Society, where as Curator of Experiments, he had to give lectures and perform experiments requested by the fellows of the society. But it wasn’t long before he was made a Professor himself, becoming Professor of Geometry at Gresham College, with this academic standing he was invited into the fellowship of the society, to become equals to the masters he once served.
He was the first salaried research scientist in Britain.
Hooke was an enthusiastic inventor and discoverer, but he often got quickly bored. This led to some of his work being the prelude to a later triumph for another scientist and in his later years he became more secretive about his work.
Hooke is less well remembered, as an architect, than his Contemporary Sir Christopher Wren, because very few of his buildings remain today.
Unfortunately Robert Hook was another genius, who died friendless and alone, suffering from various medical conditions.
There is now a Hooke Museum in his birth town of Freshwater on the Isle of Wight.
