LITTLE WIZARD

Wairarapa Times-Age, 9 May 1941, Page 6

LITTLE WIZARD

SOME AMAZING ACHIEVEMENTS Robert Hooke, born at Freshwater in the Isle of Wight in 1635, the son of the parish parson, was a miserable slip of humanity, stunted and unheal--4 thy, an unhappy Peter Pan who could n never grow up physically. He was e always more or less a dwarf. ’ He astonished his father by his ■j genius for turning out mechanical 1 toys, making a clock that would keep time when few others did, 1 and a ship with guns that fired. From an artist’s studio Robert pass--1 ed to Westminster School, controlled 1 by the tremendous Dr Busby who tried J to whip knowledge into his scholars. ' Robert needed no whip to encourage ’ him, for this light and airy little creature with an eager, hawk-like face, 1 long hair, and figure all awry, had a fl brain like a furnace. Given a sub-

J ject, his wonderful mind burned it up, I dissolved away the dross, and drew 1 out the pure gold while the other scholars were hunting for materials with which to light their intellectual fires. At eighteen he entered Oxford University and became the companion of Robert Boyle whom he assisted in his improvement of the air-pump—the beginning of pneumatic tyres. He lived as poorly as a beggar, working day and night. Frequently he would not go to bed at ail, but would toil al] night, sinking on to a couch for a brief respite during the day. He had a distinct conception of a flying machine. He realised before Newton the idea of universal gravitation, but did not work it out. It was he who gave us freezing point as zero; he who ascertained how sound is caused, and the number of vibrations! necessary to make up certain notes. I To this amazing little man we owe I our first knowledge of the rotation of Jupiter; and the drawings he made of; Mars in 1666 are the foundations on which astronomy has since built to fix the rate of movement of the planet. So wo might go on. There is no end to the amazing inventions of this strange, wizard-like man who passed unafraid through the Plague of London. living till 1703 when he died at the age of 67.