Research Catalog

Title

England's Leonardo : Robert Hooke and the seventeenth-century scientific revolution / Allan Chapman.

Author

Chapman, Allan, 1946-

Publication

Bristol ; Philadelphia : Institute of Physics, c2005.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Additional Authors

Institute of Physics (Great Britain)

Description

xv, 330 p., [29] p. of plates : ill.; 24 cm.

Summary

• "2003 marked the 300th anniversary of the death of Dr. Robert Hooke, a formidable and highly respected figure of 17th Century science. Hooke was one of the foremost exponents of the new 'experimental method', carrying out groundbreaking work across a wide spectrum of scientific disciplines, yet his reputation has long been overshadowed by his contemporary Sir Isaac Newton, with whom he came into a bitter rivalry. Yet Hooke was performing original researches into gravity whilst Newton was still an undergraduate, and in many ways Hooke's optical researches formed the springboard for Newton's. Hooke explored subjects as diverse as physiology, horology, astronomy and microscopy, his book Micrographia being a bestseller of the time.
• He was also Surveyor to the City of London following the Great Fire and a respected architect, the Royal College of Physicians and Bedlam hospital being amongst his work, while he cooperated with his friend Sir Christopher Wren on buildings including the Monument and the Royal Observatory, Greenwich." "This book traces Hooke's life from his early years on the Isle of Wight and his apprenticeship as an artist in London, his time at Westminster School and studies at Oxford University, where he became part of the group who would form the original Fellowship of the Royal Society."--Jacket.

Subjects

• Science
• History, 17th Century
• 1650-1700
• 1600-1699
• History
• Biographies
• History, 17th Century > Great Britain > Biography
• Science > Great Britain > Biography
• Science > Great Britain > History > 17th century
• Scientists > Great Britain > Biography
• Hooke, Robert, 1635-1703
• Hooke, Robert
• United Kingdom
• Biography

Genre/Form

• Biography
• Biographies
• History
• Biographies.
• History.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (p. 269-318) and index.

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

Contents

Early Life: The Prodigy from the Isle of Wight -- Breathing, Burning, and Flying: Hooke's Scientific Apprenticeship -- The Curator of Experiments -- Microscopes and Meteorology -- Hooke and the Astronomers -- Medicine and Physiology -- Surveyor to the City of London -- A World Turned Upside Down: Hooke's Geological Ideas -- A World of Mechanism -- A Realm of Vibration: Of Flight, Spring, Watches and Music -- 'A Large Window ... into the Shop of Nature': Hooke and Light -- From Pendulums to Planets: Experiments and the Understanding of Gravity -- Friends, Mistresses, Religion and Politics: Hooke's Inner World -- Death and Historical Legacy -- Portraits of Robert Hooke.

ISBN

0750309873 (hbk.)

OCLC

• 57380572
• SCSB-10294616

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library