Robert Hooke as mechanic and natural philosopher

Abstract

One of the most important aspects of the scientific work of Robert Hooke was his contribution to instrumentation (i), and the part this played in his natural philosophy may be crucial to our understanding of this problematic figure. To be sympathetic both to Hooke’s genius and to his role within the scientific community, such a study must be more expansive and less precisely focused than we have so far allowed. Too much concentration on Hooke’s controversies has given us a distorted perspective on his work. Controversy illustrates where Hooke’s work crossed that of others, not necessarily what he initially considered important, and in many cases when we look in detail, we find Hooke working on a much wider variety of possibilities than the subject of the argument. A further distortion has come from a failure to remember and to take due account of Hooke’s designated role within the scientific community. He was, during his most active and productive period, Curator of Experiments to the Royal Society. It was part of his professional duty to range over a wide field. As Curator he was expected to engage in a great variety of subjects, and to provide experiments, which included both instructive demonstrations of theoretical interest and examples of useful practical applications. His stated duties were to ‘. . . both bring in every day of the meeting three or four experiments of his own, and take care of such others, as should be mentioned to him by the society’ (2).