Recommendations from our site
“This book is an oldie but goldie. It was the first scientific bestseller, as near as I can tell. There’s a quote from Samuel Pepys—who was an original fellow of the Royal Society—that he stayed up until two ‘o’ clock in the morning reading Hooke’s book. Incredibly, the book is still in print. There are, I believe, 54 illustrations in it. It was the first book that really showed the public what the world they could not see with their naked eye looked like. It was really amazing…the illustrations in the book were done by Hooke himself and are breathtaking for their incredible accuracy, even today.” Read more...
Paul Falkowski, Biologist
“This is a fascinating book….He had no money. His dad died and left him a little bit and then he went and got himself educated at Westminster School in London. Then he was hired by Robert Boyle as a sort of assistant. He was working with him mainly in Oxford. Then Boyle went to London and when the Royal Society was founded in 1660 Hooke was around and he was absolutely brilliant with his hands and very clever at the same time. He became curator of experiments…It is big, about a foot high and nine inches wide. It is beautifully printed – there is all this old-fashioned type with the long S and so on and it contains lovely pictures. He was, luckily for us, a very good draftsman. And some of the drawings are just the same as the pages and some of them pull out to make a picture about two foot square. The most famous of all is this picture of a flea.” Read more...
The best books on Popular Science
Adam Hart-Davis, Broadcaster
