Robert Hooke (1635 – 1703) was an English scientist who was one of the early Fellows of the Royal Society. He was a scientifc instrument maker, and had worked as an assistant to another Fellow of the time, Robert Boyle. Hooke's name is well-known to student due to the law that is named after him (about the stretching of a spring being proportional to the load applied). Hooke published a popular book (Micrographica) showing many examples of what could be seen under the recently invented microscope. (Hooke had built his own.)
Hooke had a long-running dispute with Isaac Newton over scientific priority. Hooke had a spinal deformity and Newton's famous comment that if he had seen further than others it was because he stood on the the shoulders of giants is often seen as intended as a barbed put-down to Hooke (to whom he felt he owed nothing) as much as an acknowledgement of Newton's scientific forerunners such as Galileo and Kepler.
