What did isaac newton have to do with robert hooke?
It is often suggested that not only did Newton “borrow” ideas from Hooke, he wasn’t always inclined … to give Hooke as much credit as he deserved. In fact there is evidence to suggest that Hooke had a more accurate picture of gravity and planetary motion than did Newton. Yet it is Newton who we think of when it comes to both. We often refer to Newtonian physics yet Hooke had done much of the work that made Newton’s work possible. Robert Hooke was definitely recognized in his day. For example he was appointed curator of experiments for the New Royal Society on the 5th November 1662 a post he held for 40 years. The year Hooke died in 1703, Isaac Newton became (some say finagled his way into) President of the Royal Society. It may be a coincidence but the only known portrait of Hooke which had been housed in the President’s office, was mysteriously lost as were the records of much of Hooke’s work. In Newton’s defense it could be argued that the lack of acknowledgment for Robert Hooke an
