what did robert hooke do

Robert Hooke was an English physicist, natural philosopher, and architect who made significant contributions to a wide range of fields. He is best known for discovering the law of elasticity, known as Hookes law, which states that the stretching of a solid body is proportional to the force applied to it. He also designed the balance springs of watches based on his studies of stress and strain. Hooke was one of the first scientists to discover microorganisms in 1665 using a compound microscope that he built himself. He was appointed Curator of Experiments of the newly formed Royal Society of London in 1662, where he was responsible for demonstrating new experiments at the Societys weekly meetings. Hooke also made significant contributions to astronomy, physics, and biology. He was the first man to build a Gregorian reflecting telescope and discovered the fifth star in the Trapezium, an asterism in the constellation Orion, in 1664. Hookes detailed sketches of Mars were used in the 19th century to determine that planet’s rate of rotation.