Credit: ©The Royal Society
    Image number: RS.15293

    Diagram of the motion of a conical pendulum

    Date
    23 May 1666
    Creator
    Unknown, Artist
    Object type
    Archive reference number
    Manuscript page number
    p7
    Material
    Dimensions
    height (page): 327mm
    width (page): 205mm
    Subject
    Physics
       > Mechanics
    Description
    Figure accompanying an untitled text which has been annotated 'Of the Inflection of a direct Motion into a Curve by a supervening Attractive Principle by Mr Hook. May 23. 1666' (annotation on the verso of folio 3). The verso of this image is annotated 'Entred', i.e. entered in the register book (RBO/3/115).

    Hooke sought to explain why planets moved in curved or elliptical orbits. One of his hypotheses was 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.

    Another copy can be found at RBC/2/244.
    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.

    The text printed in Birch is also printed in Waller's 'Life of Hooke' in Robert Hooke, The Posthumous Works, ed. by Richard Waller (London, 1705), p. xii.
    Related fellows
    Robert Hooke (1635 - 1703, British) , Natural philosopher
    Associated place
    <The World>
       > Europe
          > United Kingdom
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