Isaac Newton, Robert Hooke 55 



either the aperture through which the light is made to enter 

 has to be very small, or the opening allowing the sound to 

 be transmitted must be large. In the latter case we get 

 " sound shadows," in the former the light spreads out just 

 as the sound does. But such refined considerations only 

 matured in the nineteenth century. In the meantime, the 

 ordinary laws of refraction and reflexion of light could be 

 satisfactorily explained by the corpuscular theory, which 

 seemed better able to cope with the formation of shadows, 

 and Newton therefore preferred the simpler theory. It is 

 unfortunate that an error of judgment, arising really from 

 superior knowledge, paralysed the progress of optics for 

 the time being, but this is the price which had to be paid 

 for the many benefits which accrued to science through the 

 confidence which Newton's work had inspired, and which 

 in all other cases proved to be justified. 



Newton's work on light brought him into controversy 

 with Robert Hooke (1635-1703), a man of great genius but 

 unpleasant temperament, who, for a time, held the Chair 

 of Geometry at Gresham College. Hooke graduated at 

 Oxford and there came into contact with John Wilkins, 

 Thomas Wilkins and Robert Boyle. With an extraordinarily 

 prolific mind he touched on many subjects, insisting on 

 his priority in almost every new idea that was brought 

 forward by others. 



In his " Micrographia " Hooke described important 

 observations on the nature of combustion and of flames. 

 Almost identical experiments were conducted by John 

 Mayow (1640-1679), a fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, 

 and it is impossible now to ascertain to whom they were 

 originally due. Mayow, who was also a distinguished 

 physiologist (see p. 296, Chapter XI.), interpreted these ex- 

 periments with remarkable foresight. He truly recognized 

 that there must be a common element in air and in such 

 bodies as nitre, which readily give up their oxygen, and 

 showed that the air contains some constituent which is 

 consumed in combustion; he thus came very near anti- 

 cipating by more than a century Lavoisier's great discovery. 



Hooke was the first who conceived the idea of regulating 

 watches by the balance wheel and spiral spring, and this 



