Robert Hooke

He suffered from several ailments in the last years of his life. He died in London on 3 March 1703 and was buried at St Helen's Bishopsgate. He was very wealthy at the time of his death.

Throughout history he is mentioned as a distrusting, jealous, melancholic and despicable human. But the discovery of his personal diary revealed his emotional side.

Robert Hooke was born on 28 July 1635 in Freshwater, England, to John Hooke and Cecily Gyles. His father was a priest at the Church of England and the curate of the Freshwater's Church of All Saints. Robert had three siblings.

He received most of his education at home because of his continual frail health. But he impressed his father with his quick learning, drawing and painting skills and adeptness in making mechanical models.

His father passed away in 1648 and left him an inheritance of £40. With this he travelled to London and acquired an art apprenticeship under Peter Lely and Samuel Cowper. But he left the apprenticeship soon and went to the Westminster School to study under Dr Richard Busby. He studied Greek, Latin, mechanics and mathematics.

In 1655, Robert Hooke became an assistant to the famous scientist Robert Boyle and worked in this capacity till 1662. He helped in the construction and operation of Boyle's air-pump.

He discovered the law of elasticity which eventually came to be known as Hooke’s Law. He described this law in an anagram 'ceiiinosssttuv' in 1660 and gave its solution in 1678.

In 1660, the Royal Society—the oldest national scientific society in the world—was formed by 12 men at the Gresham College. Some of them were Robert Boyle, Christopher Wren, John Wilkins, Sir Robert Moray and Viscount Brouncker. In 1662, on Sir Moray's proposal and with Boyle's support Hooke was named as the curator of the society. He became a fellow of the society in 1663.

In 1664 he succeeded Arthur Dacres as the professor of Geometry at the Gresham College.

In 1665 he published the book, ‘Micrographia’, in which he documented the observations he had made through various lenses of a microscope. It is considered to be one of the most important scientific books ever written.

Robert Hooke is best known for propounding the law of elasticity which bears his name—Hooke’s law. He first stated the law as a Latin anagram in 1660 and published its solution in 1678. This law is extensively used in all branches of science and engineering, and is the foundation of many disciplines such as seismology, molecular mechanics and acoustics.

He is also known for the observations he made while using a microscope. In his book 'Micrographia', published in 1665, he documented experiments that he had made with a microscope. In this path-breaking study, he coined the term "cell" while explaining the structure of cork.