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Science's Missing Link: Robert Hooke and the Royal Society
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"Hooke sowed the seeds of several new sciences, though in many cases the world had forgotten the sower by the time the plant appeared."
Stephen Inwood, The Man Who Knew Too Much, 2002
"In his Attempt to Prove the Motion of the Earth… Hooke made some of the most pertinent remarks about gravitation that were made before Newton."
Allan Chapman, England's Leonardo: Robert Hooke and the Seventeenth-Century Scientific Revolution
"Hooke wanted only 'some mention' in the preface to Newton's Principia, a little acknowledgment of his efforts, but Newton refused to make the gesture. Newton wrote to Halley, who was supervising the publication of the great Principia, that he would not give Hooke any credit… Einstein said: 'That, alas, is vanity. You find it in so many scientists. You know, it has always hurt me to think that Galilei did not acknowledge the work of Kepler.'"
Bernard Cohen, 'Einstein's Last Interview', in Scientific American, vol 193, no.1: July 1955, pp.68-73
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Bonhams is delighted to announce the forthcoming sale of Robert Hooke's autograph minutes of the Royal Society, recording experiments conducted by him as Curator from 1661 and his correspondence as Secretary from 1677. This three-inch thick manuscript volume will go on display from Tuesday 14 March at Bonhams' New Bond Street salerooms, prior to its sale there on Tuesday 28 March. It is expected to make in excess of £1 million.
The minutes, described by scholars as "science's missing link", cover a vast range of experimental endeavour, including Hooke's famous exchange with Newton over the motion of the planets and gravity, and the hitherto lost record confirming the first observation of microbes by Antoni van Leeuwenhoek.
Despite Robert Hooke's inestimable contribution to science and understanding, the only innovation to bear his name is Hooke's Law - ut tensio sic vis (extension [of a spring] is proportional to force) - the shortest law in physics. However, he also suggested the presence of gravitational 'vortices' that pulled comets from their orbit, and invented the reflecting telescope, the sextant, the punched-paper record-keeper (the CD-ROM of its day), the wind gauge, the worm gear and the wheel barometer.
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The manuscript will be sold in Bonhams' sale of Printed Books, Maps and Manuscripts, on Tuesday 28 March in New Bond Street, London. Advance viewing by arrangement.
Please click here to order a catalogue.
Please click here for the press release.
For further information, please contact David Park in the Book and Manuscript Department: +44 (0)20 7468 8352; david.park@bonhams.com
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