The Man Who Knew Too Much: The Inventive Life of Robert Hooke, 1635-1703 (Hardcover)

A prolific inventor. He also gave scientific demonstrations throughout his life at the Royal Society. The range was incredible and has to be on the true polymaths of all time.

A comparison with Newton is interesting. Newton, even though he could prove everything, made some quite remarkable guesses that turned out, in the fullness of time, to be correct. The same can be said of Hooke.

Nick

Stephen Inwood has drawn extensively on material from Hooke's era and more recently to build up a picture of a very busy man, who is now remembered if at all for his work on springs ("Hooke's Law") and his arguments with Isaac Newton. Probably Newton's most famous words ("standing on the shoulders of giants") were written in a letter to Hooke. The weight of history sees the deified Newton crushing to oblivion some of those he stood upon. This was orchestrated more by his ardent admirers than Newton himself, although the father of gravity does not emerge from his debates with Hooke totally exonerated.

There are good insights into the Coffee House culture that was present in the last half of the 17th Century, and the workings of the newly formed Royal Society. Hooke was a pivotal individual in the early years of this august body, and his regular papers and experimental demonstrations were extremely prominent in their weekly meetings for 30 years. Hooke had a grand dream about the usefulness of science, and the expectation that everything would be explainable in the fullness of time, even if not in his lifetime. In short, he had a limitless confidence in the problem solving ability of science, turning his back on superstition that was so prevalent around him.

History has dealt with Robert Hooke too severely, and Inwood helps to address the balance. I am left a little breathless at the speed and scope of the tasks undertaken by Mr Hooke. Hindsight is a treacherous teacher, and can make the obvious trivial, whilst inappropriately assigning connections. Even allowing for the these tendencies, it seems that the legacy of Hooke is far reaching. He was ahead of his time, and could rightly claim to have done the founding work in many important areas [stellar parallax, watches, windmill, barometers, respiratory investigation, vivisection, celestial motion, telescopes, microscopes, navigation, light .......]. In some areas, his pioneering work was lost, and the advances not made again for 150 years.

The book would have benefited from some diagrams of the matters discussed; the mechanisms for watches, or the differences between reflecting and refracting telescopes, for example. This aside, the author does not hide Hooke's flaws, but dispels his reputation of being a bad tempered complainer. Hooke did have several major disagreements with learned gentlemen (Newton, Huygens, Hevelius). However Isaac Newton had similar disputes. What is important is that Hooke also had a large circle of friends, and several individuals with whom he worked successfully for many years (Sir Christopher Wren, Halley, Tompion and Harry Hunt).

Hooke is destined to be forever the bridesmaid, and never the bride. He was TOO busy, and if he started a train of thought, it was as if he had completed it in his own eyes. Many items of investigation were left unfinished, and only restarted when a rival had almost come upon a new or similar solution. This was the cause of many of his difficulties over establishing precedence in scientific matters. Not given the necessary credit, Hooke's work played the part of a catalyst to those in the wider community that was based around the Royal Society.

The final irony is that Hooke accused many at of the time of blatant plagiarism. He did not foresee that a significant number of buildings that he designed (and in many instances, oversaw the construction of) would be attributed others. There is much talk of "Wren churches" rebuilt after the disastrous fire of 1666. Hooke worked on not a few of these. Inwood details his working relationship with Wren, and rightly acknowledges his large contribution to both building design and the 'project management' of getting a building completed. For most people, the contribution of Hooke to building would have been more than enough for a lifetime.

Peter Morgan, Bath, UK (morganp@supanet.com)