The History of Dots Part 9: the Cell and Robert Hooke

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This is another in a continuing series of posts on the History of Dots.  Let’s face it:  dots are the alpha and the omega of our existence, from the imaginary point in space; to the great dots in the sky seen by the ancients for thousands of years before their vastness and complexities were revealed with the invention of the telescope (and etc.); to the fantastic smallness of “dots” whose organization was revealed through the invention of the microscope; to the atomic and sub-atomic world, right to the very point of singularity. The dot is a big deal. 

Had there been no Newton every school child would know the name of Robert Hooke (1635-1703) in its place—he was polymathic, totally energized, big-thinking non-sleeping experimentalist and theoretician who worked across numerous disciplines (physics and astronomy, to chemistry, biology, and geology, to naval technology), not the least of which was architecture (having helped Christopher Wren in the design of the new St. Paul’s).  He was an enormous figure who was also never below a fight or argument, and whose grasp of his own very considerable accomplishments never seemed to be limited by what he had actually done. Some people lay the blame for Hooke’s obscurity upon Newton’s great and tireless vindictiveness against Hooke, but that’s by far from the whole story of Hooke’s troublesome personal legacy.  Not only is his portrait not on the coin of the realm nor hanging everywhere in the halls of academia, but there is no known surviving portrait of the man.  He didn’t come close to Newton’s enormity, not really, but in the absence of  Jupiter and Saturn even the Earth starts to look a little bit big.among the rest of the planets.

One of the very big things that he did was to become the first person to observe “cells”—the “dots” of concern in this post.  After reading Antonie van Leeuwenhoek’s* (1632 - 1723) work  Hooke had made (by Mr. Cock) a version of the L’s microscope, reproduced some of the observations, and then set out on his own.  The slice of cork pictured here was the first time anyone had seen such things as cells, Hooke believing them to transmit the essentials of the plant.

In "Observation XVIII" of the Micrographia, he wrote: “. . . I could exceedingly plainly perceive it to be all perforated and porous, much like a Honey-comb, but that the pores of it were not regular. . . . these pores, or cells, . . . were indeed the first microscopical pores I ever saw, and perhaps, that were ever seen, for I had not met with any Writer or Person, that had made any mention of them before this. . . “

The 28-year old Hooke published the results in a gorgeous and revolutionary book, Micrographia, in 1665, which became an instant best seller and highly praised and valued. (Samuel Pepys, perhaps among the shiniest stars whose imprimatur was like a royal blessing, said the book (was) "the most ingenious book that I ever read in my life.") There is no telling what the people of the mid-17^th century thought of seeing such incredible discoveries in the little semi-invisible stuff that made up their normal, daily lives.  The only thing that somewhat equates to this would be if the first images of the Hubble were those of Earth-bound objects whose detail had previously been unknown.  Hooke’s observations and drawings of things like the common flea were just an astonishment—that such a creature of “low order” could have such intricate detail and design was a complete revelation.  The drawings of the fly's eye, too, was an inescapable wonder, an incredible object to consider as having any detail pre-microscope, and then revealed to have unimaginable design and elegance. 

 

*Leeuwenhoek’s major contributions came in the form of letters to the Royal Society.  He operated in his own cellular world, if you will, not having been schooled in languages outside of his own native Dutch or receive any real formal education in the sciences at the university level.  He labored mostly alone save for his great correspondence. For example, in a letter of September 7, 1674, Leeuwenhoek described observations on lake water, including an excellent description of the green charophyte alga Spirogyra: "Passing just lately over this lake, . . . and examining this water next day, I found floating therein divers earthy particles, and some green streaks, spirally wound serpent-wise, and orderly arranged, after the manner of the copper or tin worms, which distillers use to cool their liquors as they distil over. The whole circumference of each of these streaks was about the thickness of a hair of one's head. . . all consisted of very small green globules joined together: and there were very many small green globules as well." 

The image above is  an engraving of one of Leeuwnhoek's later microscopes--in  the history of his work, Leeuwenhoeck made something like 500 scopes, with powers varying from 50-500x.