Robert Hooke

18 Feb, 2016 500 Science

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the life and work of Robert Hooke (1635-1703) who worked for Robert Boyle and was curator of experiments at the Royal Society. The engraving of a flea, above, is taken from his Micrographia which caused a sensation when published in 1665. Sometimes remembered for his disputes with Newton, he studied the planets with telescopes and snowflakes with microscopes. He was an early proposer of a theory of evolution, discovered light diffraction with a wave theory to explain it and felt he was rarely given due credit for his discoveries.

Play on BBC Sounds website

Guests

  • David Wootton 16 episodes
    Anniversary Professor of History at the University of York
  • Patricia Fara 17 episodes
    President Elect of the British Society for the History of Science
  • Rob Iliffe 2 episodes
    Professor of History of Science at Oxford University

Reading list

  • London's Leonardo: The Life and Work of Robert Hooke
    Jim Bennett, Michael Cooper, Michael Hunter and Lisa Jardine (Oxford University Press, 2003)
  • History of the Royal Society of London
    Thomas Birch (Gale ECCO, 2010) Google Books →
  • England's Leonardo: Robert Hooke and the Seventeenth-Century Scientific Revolution
    Allan Chapman (CRC Press, 2004) Google Books →
  • A More Beautiful City: Robert Hooke and the Rebuilding of London After the Great Fire
    Michael Cooper (Sutton Publishing Ltd, 2003) Google Books →
  • Robert Hooke
    Margaret Espinasse (University of California Press, 1962) Google Books →
  • Oxford and the History of Science
    Robert Gunther (Oxford University Press, 1934) Google Books →
  • The Diary Of Robert Hooke
    Robert Hooke (eds. Henry W. Adams and Walter Robinson) Google Books →
  • The Man Who Knew Too Much: The Strange & Inventive Life of Robert Hooke 1635-1703
    Stephen Inwood (Macmillan, 2002) Google Books →
  • The Curious Life of Robert Hooke: The Man Who Measured London
    Lisa Jardine (HarperCollins, 2003) Google Books →
  • The Invention of Science: A New History of the Scientific Revolution
    David Wootton (Allen Lane, 2015) Google Books →

Related episodes


Programme ID: b070h6ww

Episode page: bbc.co.uk/programmes/b070h6ww

Auto-category: 509 (History and philosophy of science)