Robert Hooke

Michael Cooper is Emeritus Professor of Engineering Surveying at City University, London, UK. He is the author of two books on Hooke and London. Michael Hunter is Professor of History at Birkbeck, University of London, UK. He is the author of many books on science and its milieu in late seventeenth-century England, and is also the editor-in-chief of the Works and Correspondence of Robert Boyle.

• Contents: Introduction. Part 1 Celestial Mechanics and Astronomy: Robert Hooke's seminal contribution to orbital dynamics, Michael Nauenberg; Hooke's programme: final thoughts, Ofer Gal; Robert Hooke as an astronomer, Hideto Nakajima. Part 2 Instruments for Natural Philosophy: Instruments and ingenuity, Jim Bennett; Hooke's design for a driven equatorial mounting, Allan Mills, John Hennessy and Stephen Watson; Assessment of the scientific value of Hooke's work, S.H. Joseph. Part 3 Speculative Philosophy: Hooke on memory and the memory of Hooke, Douwe Draaisma; Graphic technologies, Nick Wilding; Hooke's ideas of the terraqueous globe and a theory of evolution, Ellen Tan Drake. Part 4 Architecture and Construction: Hooke and Bedlam, Jacques Heyman; Robert Hooke's Montagu House, Alison Stoesser; The 'mechanick artist' in late seventeenth-century English and French architecture, Hentie Louw. Part 5 Life and Reputation: Robert Hooke: gentleman of science, Mordechai Feingold; Hooke and Westminster, Edward Smith; After the Principia, Robert D. Purrington; Robert Hooke: a reputation restored, Lisa Jardine. Bibliography; Index.

’This is a carefully planned and well-prepared volume that will do much to erase the still prevalent prejudices of historians. It not only bristles with scholarship but is touched with warmth and human interest as well. Everyone interested in seventeenth-century science will want to own it and refer to it.’ ISIS