Standing on the shoulders of giants

I am often humbled and encouraged, but always interested in and by historic figures. I amazed by the greatest personalities our society produces. People like Gandi and King. People like Fermi and Einstein and Turing. Still others like Pele and Gretsky and Jordan. Maybe even Bruce Lee.

All of these people are known great leaders and champions. But it is rare when you come across an unknown hero. A hero that affects all of us even today. A good example of such a rare individual is Dr. Hooke.

Last week, as reported by the BBC, a "lost" science manuscript from the 1600s was found in the cupboard of a house in Hampshire England. The hand-written document - penned by Dr Robert Hooke - contains the minutes of the Royal Society from 1661 to 1682.

Now being an American, the only Dr. Hook I previously knew of sang:

"Well we're big rock singers.

We got golden fingers.

And we're loved everywhere we go.

We sing about beauty,

And we sing about truth

At ten thousand dollars a show.

We take all kinds of pills

To give us all kind of thrills,

But the thrill we ain't never known

Is the thrill that'll getcha

When you get your picture

On the cover of the Rollin' Stone.”

Ignorance is truly bliss. But I still like that song. Little did I know, the famous Issac Newton quote:

"If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants"

appeared originally in a letter to Dr. Robert Hooke. The quote has been interpreted as a sarcastic remark directed against Dr. Hooke. He had accused Sir Isaac Newton of stealing his ideas about gravity.

It is encouraging to me to read that historic peer working relationships over the past four centuries have not improved from that which I experience every day at my work.

But what an impressive litany of discoveries and work this man produced:

• Hooke experimentally demonstrated the inverse-square law of gravity
• Coined the biological word "cell"
• so called because his observations of plant cells reminded him of monks' cells which were called "cellula".
• Helped pave the way for the steam engine
• Designed the sash window
• Designed the velocipede
• The Bicycle!
• Helped to rebuild London after the Great Fire of 1666
• Co-designer of London!
• He worked on designing the Royal Greenwich Observatory
• from which “Greenwich mean time” derives.
• Invented the Anchor Escapement
• The anchor escapement is a type of escapement, the mechanism in a clock that maintains the swinging of a pendulum for accurate timekeeping.

And the discovery of:

• Hooke's law of elasticity, which describes the linear variation of tension with extension in an elastic spring.
• How could we possibly do without rubber bands and springs?
• the first binary star
• the iris diaphragm in cameras
• the wheel-cutting engine
• the universal joint
• the punched paper record keeper
• the worm gear
• the optical telegraph
• the deep sea sampler
• the wind gauge

Hooke also transformed or improved all the important scientific instruments of his age:

• thermometers,
• barometers,
• reflecting and refracting telescopes,
• single lens and compound microscopes,
• quadrants,
• sextants,
• pendulums,
• watches,
• precision balances,
• vacuum pumps,
• micrometer eyepieces,
• dividing engines (for accurately calibrating quadrant and other scales).
• and he made the air pump that enabled Robert Boyle to develop his law of gases.

Dr Robert Hooke, who died in 1703, has been described as the unsung hero of science and "England's Leonardo". But he never made the cover of the Rolling Stone.