Quotes:Hooke, Robert

Boris de Zirkoff

Hooke, Robert. English experimental physicist, b. at Freshwater, Isle of Wight, July 18, 1635; d. in London, Mch. 3, 1703. After 1655, was employed and patronized by the Hon. Robert Boyle. Appointed, 1662, curator of experiments to the Royal Society, of which he was elected a Fellow in 1663. Appointed, 1665, professor of geometry in Gresham college. Secretary to the Royal Society, 1677-83, and published in 1681-82 the papers read before that body under the title of Philosophical Collections. His optical investigations led him to adopt the undulatory theory of light; he was the first to state clearly that the motions of the heavenly bodies must be regarded as a mechanical problem; and he approached the discovery of universal gravitation. Unfortunately, he was a man of irritable temper and made some virulent attacks on Newton and other men of science.

Source: Boris de Zirkoff, «H. P. Blavatsky Collected Writings», vol. 1, pp. 469-470