Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Robert Hooke and Horology

1951; Royal Society; Volume: 8; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1098/rsnr.1951.0016

1743-0178

Alex R. Hall,

History of Science and Medicine

Robert Hooke (1635-1703), Curator of Experiments to the Royal Society and subsequently its Secretary, is generally credited with two important contributions to the art of the clock-maker among the many other productions of his versatile and practical genius: the invention of the anchor escapement and the spring' controlled balance-wheel. The great step forward in time-keeping, first suggested by Galileo, of applying the isochronous properties of a pendulum to the mechanism of a clock, was of course entirely due to the Dutch scientist Christiaan Huygens (1657), but it was the invention of a new escapement in place of the crown-wheel and verge which Huygens had used which made tolerably accurate astronomical clocks practicable before the end of the seventeenth century. The attribution of this invention to Hooke appears to rest on a passage in William Derham’s Artificial Clockmaer , where he writes: ‘ Mr. W . Clement, a London Clock-maker, contrived them to go with less weight, an heavier Ball (if you please) and to vibrate but a small compass. Which is now the universal method of the Royal Pendulums. But Dr. Hook denies Mr. Clement to have invented this: and says that it was his invention, and that he caused a piece of this nature to be made, which he shewed before the Royal Society, soon after the Fire of London. ´ 1