Science Networks . Historical Studies Founded by Erwin Hiebert and Hans Wußing Volume 39 Edited by Eberhard Knobloch, Helge Kragh and Erhard Scholz Editorial Board: K. Andersen, Aarhus R. Halleux, Liège D. Buchwald, Pasadena S. Hildebrandt, Bonn H.J.M. Bos, Utrecht Ch. Meinel, Regensburg U. Bottazzini, Roma J. Peiffer, Paris J.Z. Buchwald, Cambridge, Mass. W. Purkert, Bonn K. Chemla, Paris D. Rowe, Mainz S.S. Demidov, Moskva A.I. Sabra, Cambridge, Mass. E.A. Fellmann, Basel Ch. Sasaki, Tokyo M. Folkerts, München R.H. Stuewer, Minneapolis P. Galison, Cambridge, Mass. H. Wußing, Leipzig I. Grattan-Guinness, London V.P. Vizgin, Moskva J. Gray, Milton Keynes Robert D. Purrington The First Professional Scientist Robert Hooke and the Royal Society of London Birkhäuser Basel · Boston · Berlin Author: Robert D. Purrington Tulane University Dept. Physics New Orleans, LA 70118 USA e-mail: [email protected] Library of Congress Control Number: 2009920472 Bibliographic information published by Die Deutsche Bibliothek Die Deutsche Bibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data is available in the Internet at http://dnb.ddb.de ISBN 978-3-0346-0036-1 Birkhäuser Verlag AG, Basel - Boston - Berlin This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, re-use of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in other ways, and storage in data banks. For any kind of use permission of the copyright owner must be obtained. © 2009 Birkhäuser Verlag AG Basel · Boston · Berlin P.O. Box 133, CH-4010 Basel, Switzerland Part of Springer Science+Business Media Printed on acid-free paper produced from chlorine-free pulp. TCF ∞ Cover illustration: Plate from Hooke’s published Cutler Lecture “Animadversions on the First Part of the Machina Coelestis ...” showing an equatorial quadrant driven by a conical or circular pendu- lum. See also p. 210. Printed in Germany ISBN 978-3-0346-0036-1 e-ISBN 978-3-0346-0037-8 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 www.birkhauser.ch To Loraine Contents Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii Annotations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xviii 1 RestoringRobertHooke . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 HookeandLondon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Annotations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 2 RobertHooke,IndefaticableGenius:HookeandLondon . . . . . . . 13 TheDiary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 HookeandWren . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 Annotations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 3 PromotingPhysico-Mathematical-ExperimentalLearning: FoundingtheRoyalSocietyofLondon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 Annotations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 4 SocietyoftheMuses:TheFirstDecade . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 FocusedEnergies:TheLawsofMotion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 ConcludingtheFirstDecade . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56 Annotations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58 5 CrisisandConsolidation:1672–1687 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 Annotations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69 6 TheSocietyAfterthePrincipia:1688–1703 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 Annotations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77 viii Contents 7 ScientificVirtuoso:Hooke1655–1687 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81 FirstDiscoveries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81 HookeandtheRoyalSociety,1662–1677 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84 HookeandOldenburg,1675–1677 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91 HookeandtheSocietyafterOldenburg;1677–1687 . . . . . . . . . . . . 98 “RestlessGenius:”HookeasScientist . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101 TheHookeFolio,2006 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114 Conclusion:Micrographia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115 Annotations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118 8 AndAllWasLight:HookeandNewtononLightandColor . . . . . . 135 Hooke’sTheoryofLight . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137 Newton’sTheory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139 Debateafter1672 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140 Annotations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144 9 TheNatureofThingsThemselves: RobertHooke,NaturalPhilosopher . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149 Hooke’sNaturalPhilosophy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150 Light;Matter,andMotion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153 NaturalPhilosophyandNewton . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159 Annotations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160 10 TheSystemoftheWorld:HookeandUniversalGravitation, theInverse-squareLaw,andPlanetaryOrbits . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165 Introduction:HookeandPlanetaryDynamics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165 HalleyandNewton . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171 Huygens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173 HookeandUniversalGravitation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174 HookeandNewton,1679 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177 Hooke’s“LawsofCircularMotion” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182 Newton,Gravitation,andtheKeplerProblem,1665–1987 . . . . . . . . . 187 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189 Annotations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190 Contents ix 11 TheOmnipotenceoftheCreator:RobertHooke,Astronomer . . . . 203 TelescopesandOptics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205 HookeAsAnObserver . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207 Comets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214 StellarParallax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220 Annotations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220 12 TheLastRemain:HookeAfterthePrincipia,1687–1703 . . . . . . . 227 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227 HookeandNewton . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229 1687–1703 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231 Annotations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237 Epilogue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241 Legacy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247 Annotations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 248 Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251 Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 265 Acknowledgments ThisbookhaditsgenesisinaNewtonsymposiumwhichIhostedwiththelateFrank EddingtonDurhamatthetercentenaryofthePrincipiain1987aswellasinaquarter- centuryofdiscussionswithProfessorDurhamonthehistoryofphysicsingeneraland theseventeenthcenturyinparticular.Hisinsightshavebeeninvaluableanditistohim thatIowemygreatestdebt. Iwouldespeciallyliketothanktheveryableandhelpfulstaffofthelibraryof theRoyalSociety,andinparticularthelibrarians,KarenPetersandKeithMoore.Ms. Peters was librarian when I began this project and Mr. Moore helped me finish it. I particularlythankhimforprovidingmewithadigitalcopyofthe2006Hookefolio beforeitwasmadegenerallyavailable.IalsothanktheGuildhallLibraryoftheCity of London, the British Museum Library, the Science Library, and the Imperial Col- legelibrary,fortheirexpertassistanceandcooperation.Iwouldfurtherliketothank Tulane University for a sabbaticalleave in the spring of 1999 which allowed me to searchthearchivesoftheRoyalSocietyandtheGuildhallLibrary,thustoencounter someoftheprimarysourcesforthisworkforthefirsttime.Othervisitstoresources in the UK overthelast decadeanda half– mostparticularlythe entire1992–3aca- demic year – were also supportedin whole or in part by the university. In addition, thanks are due the staff of the Howard-Tilton Library at Tulane for their patience, professionalism,anddedicationinbuildingavaluablecollectionofsecondaryworks on seventeenthcentury science. I owe a special debt to Eleanor Elder. I would also like to thank my editor at Birkha¨user, Karin Neidhart, for her help in bringing this projecttocompletion. AfurtherdebtisowedtoseveralhistoriansandscientistswithwhomIhavehad fruitfulconversations,somebrief,somelengthy.Inparticular,Iacknowledgediscus- sions with Michael Nauenberg,Lisa Jardine, MichaelCooper,MordechaiFeingold, EllenTanDrake,andHentieLouwwhichhaveprovidedimportantinsights.