ROBERT HOOKE was a genius who made significant contributions to virtually every field of science but always in the shadow of Sir Isaac Newton.
While Newton has been lionised for his theories, Hooke is a little-known figure. Yet much of his work remains relevant. His work on elasticity, culminating in Hooke’s Law, is still essential reading for engineers, and his invention of the universal joint is the key component of drive shafts in cars.
Newton was the outstanding mathematician but when it came to technical inventions and applications Hooke outstripped him. In recent years he has been hailed as Britain’s equivalent of Leonardo da Vinci. He was among the first to realise that microbes existed and he discovered that plants have cells. His book, Micrographia, caused a sensation when it was published. Samuel Pepys described it as the “most ingenious book” he had read. Almost two centuries before Darwin offered the theory of evolution Hooke had concluded that fossils were extinct life forms.
It was to Hooke that Newton addressed his comment about standing on the shoulders of giants.