Robert Hooke

Robert Hooke, FRS (July 18, 1635 - March 3, 1703), one of the greatest experimental scientists of the seventeenth century, played an important role in the scientific revolution.

Hooke and Newton

Robert Hooke and Isaac Newton entertained a considerable mutual dislike for each other. They fell out in 1672 when Hooke criticized Newton's presentation showing that prisms split white light rather than modifying it. Newton expressed fury that Hooke seemed unable to grasp his ground-breaking discovery, and threatened to leave the Royal Society.

Related Topics:
Isaac Newton - 1672 - Prism - Light

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Relations between the men grew worse as time progressed. In 1679, Hooke wrote to Newton advocating an inverse square law of gravitation, though he lacked the mathematical ability to formally prove it. When Newton published his Principia Mathematica in 1687, including a proof of an inverse square law, he failed to credit Hooke at all.

Related Topics:
1679 - Inverse square - Gravitation - Principia Mathematica - 1687

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The famous Newton quote, "If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants", appeared originally in a letter to Hooke, and Newton presumably intended it as a sarcastic remark directed against Hooke, who had a remarkably short stature.

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