Credit: ©The Royal Society
    Image number: RS.17379

    Instrument for finding the force of falling bodies

    Date
    18 February 1663
    Creator
    Unknown, Artist
    After
    Robert Hooke (1635 - 1703, British) , Natural philosopher
    Object type
    Archive reference number
    Manuscript page number
    p347
    Material
    Dimensions
    height (page): 320mm
    width (page): 200mm
    Subject
    Description
    A figure accompanying Robert Hooke's paper titled 'A description of the Instrument for finding the force of falling bodies', which was read at a meeting of the Royal Society on 18 February 1663.

    ABC: pedestal for the scale.
    DE: a double beam of a scale, designed to let a steel ball, F, fall from a height onto a steel plate, G.
    H: counterpoise on the scale, IK.
    L: a small spring with a stay, M, to detect whether the ball has moved the scale.

    This figure is a copy from the Register Book Original (RBO/2ii/115; RBO/2i/151). The original drawing by Hooke is at Cl.P/20/12/001. Other copies can be found at RBC/1/339, MS/215/073 and RB/1/20/257.

    This volume is another copy of entries of the first two volumes of the Register Book. It was given to Sir Joseph Banks by G. S. Heales Esquire of Doctor's Common on 31 May 1814.
    Object history
    At the meeting of the Royal Society on 18 February 1663, ‘[Hooke's] account of the force of falling bodies was read, and ordered to be registered’ (Birch 1:195). The text and figure are reproduced in Birch 1:195-97.

    This figure was printed in Plate 1 from Robert Hooke, Posthumous Works, ed. by Richard Waller (London: S. Smith and B. Walford, 1705), after p. 126, fig. 1.
    Related fellows
    Robert Hooke (1635 - 1703, British) , Natural philosopher
    Associated place
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