The Curious Life of Robert Hooke : The Man Who Measured London - Hardcover

Jardine, Lisa

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0007149441 ISBN 13: 9780007149445

Publisher: HarperCollins, 2003

Synopsis

Jardine, Lisa. The Curious Life of Robert Hooke: The Man Who Measued London. London, Harper Collins, 2003. 16 cm x 24 cm. IX, 422 pages. Original Hardcover with dustjacket in protective collector's - Mylar. Excellent condition. Robert Hooke FRS (18 July] 1635 - 3 March 1703) was an English natural philosopher, architect and polymath. His adult life comprised three distinct periods: as a scientific inquirer lacking money; achieving great wealth and standing through his reputation for hard work and scrupulous honesty following the great fire of 1666, but eventually becoming ill and party to jealous intellectual disputes. These issues may have contributed to his relative historical obscurity. Hooke studied at Wadham College, Oxford during the Protectorate where he became one of a tightly knit group of ardent Royalists led by John Wilkins. Here he was employed as an assistant to Thomas Willis and to Robert Boyle, for whom he built the vacuum pumps used in Boyle's gas law experiments. He built some of the earliest Gregorian telescopes and observed the rotations of Mars and Jupiter. In 1665 he inspired the use of microscopes for scientific exploration with his book, Micrographia. Based on his microscopic observations of fossils, Hooke was an early proponent of biological evolution. He investigated the phenomenon of refraction, deducing the wave theory of light, and was the first to suggest that matter expands when heated and that air is made of small particles separated by relatively large distances. He performed pioneering work in the field of surveying and map-making and was involved in the work that led to the first modern plan-form map, though his plan for London on a grid system was rejected in favour of rebuilding along the existing routes. He also came near to an experimental proof that gravity follows an inverse square law, and hypothesised that such a relation governs the motions of the planets, an idea which ..

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Review

History hasn't been particularly kind to Robert Hooke. Inescapably linked to Sir Isaac Newton, with whom he famously feuded, Hooke was also a notable associate of surveyor Sir Christopher Wren and Robert Boyle, the father of modern chemistry. Gifted in everything from architecture to anatomical dissection, he perhaps spread his knowledge too thin to have had a towering impact on any one field. His versatility combined with an impolitic personality damaged Hooke's standing in his lifetime and, author Lisa Jardine convincingly contends, in the centuries since his death. Jardine, the author of On a Grander Scale: The Outstanding Life and Tumultuous Times of Christopher Wren , once again delves deep into the 17th century to resurrect the reputation of "a founding figure in the European scientific revolution." A London-based professor of renaissance studies, Jardine brings great enthusiasm to her task, even embarking on some detective work to discover what she convincingly contends is a long-lost painting of Hooke, whose appearance had heretofore been limited to unflattering descriptions by his contemporaries. As readable as it is thoroughly researched, The Curious Life of Robert Hooke will stand for some time as the definitive account of one of history's great dabblers. --Steven Stolder

About the Author

Lisa Jardine is Professor of Renaissance Studies at QMW, London and honorary fellow of King's College, Cambridge. She has a weekly column in The Daily Telegraph, writes regularly for all the UK's major national newspapers and for numerous magazines in addition to presenting and appearing on many arts/history programmes for TV and radio (a regular co-host of R4's 'Start the Week'). She has judged the 1996 Whitbread Prize, the 1999 Guardian First Book Award, was chair of the 1997 Orange Prize. She is married to the architect John Hare, has three children and lives in London.

About this edition

• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0007149441
• ISBN 13: 9780007149445
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 352
• Illustrator: Illustrated