Inflection of a direct motion into a curve by a supervening attractive principle
Date
23 May 1666
Creator
Unknown, Artist
Object type
Archive reference number
Manuscript page number
p115
Material
Dimensions
height (page): 363mm
width (page): 233mm
width (page): 233mm
Subject
Description
Diagram in Robert Hooke's paper on the inflection of a direct motion into a curve by a supervening attractive principle. Hooke seeks to explain why planets moved in curved or elliptical orbits. One of his hypotheses is that the curved motion came from the attractive property of a body at the centre. In this paper, Hooke attempts to explain this hypothesis through a series of experiments using a pendulum.
Object history
At the meeting of the Royal Society on 23 May 1666, ‘A paper of Mr. Hooke concerning the inflection of a direct motion into a curve by a supervening attractive principle was read, and order’d to be registered’ (Birch 2:90). The text and reference to the figure, but not the figure itself, are printed in Birch 2:91-92.
Related fellows
Robert Hooke (1635 - 1703, British) , Natural philosopher
Associated place