Why was Robert Hooke interested in small organisms?

Question

Robert Hooke can't just onw day wake up & say "i'm going to discover cells today!" (or did he..)

how did he really? was it an accident when he discover cells?

Answer 1

Robert Hooke, FRS (18 July 1635 – 3 March 1703) was an English natural philosopher and polymath who played an important role in the scientific revolution, through both experimental and theoretical work.

Hooke is known principally for his law of elasticity (Hooke's Law). He is also remembered for his work as "the father of microscopy" — it was Hooke who coined the term "cell" to describe the basic unit of life — but he also assisted Robert Boyle and built the vacuum pumps used in Boyle's gas law experiments, was an important architect of his time, was chief surveyor to the City of London after the Great Fire, built some of the earliest Gregorian telescopes, observed the rotations of Mars and Jupiter, and was an early proponent of the theory of evolution through his observations of microscopic fossils. He investigated the phenomenon of refraction, deducing the wave theory of light, and was the first to suggest that matter expands when heated and that air is made of small particles separated by relatively large distances. He also deduced from experiments that gravity follows an inverse square law, and that such a relation governs the motions of the planets, an idea which was subsequently developed by Newton.[1] Much of Hooke's work was conducted in his capacity as curator of experiments of the Royal Society, a post he held from 1662.

Hooke was, by all accounts, a remarkably industrious man, and was at one time simultaneously the curator of the Royal Society and a member of its council, Gresham Professor of Geometry and Chief Surveyor to the City of London.

Hooke's reputation was largely forgotten during the eighteenth century, and this is popularly attributed to a dispute with Isaac Newton over credit for his work on gravitation; Newton, as President of the Royal Society, did much to obscure Hooke, including, it is said, destroying (or failing to preserve) the only known portrait of the man. Hooke's reputation was revived during the twentieth century through studies of Robert Gunther and Margaret 'Espinasse, and after a long period of relative obscurity he is now recognised as one of the most important scientists of his age.

i think this didn't answer your question..

if you want more info..refer to this site:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Hook...

Answer 2

Hey gal, i dunno y he was ntrestd in m.oz but 1 thng i definitely knw... m really ntrested 2 kill him if he ver alive... wats da point of waking up 1 day n sayin... cells exist... if he wanted fame... he cud have gone for smthng much btr... like inventing a chocolate dat wud never get finished, or some icecream or thngs like dat... but no... he has to add to our troubles n its all becuz of ppl like robert hook dat v hv 2 study dis borin botany...

Answer 3

From what I've read, Hooke was interested in the unusual properties of cork.  It floats, is a good insulator, flexible to some degree and was used extensively in manufacturing and of course as corks in bottles.  He used thin slices to see if he could detect reasons for the properties of cork.  He discovered the cork was composed of tiny compartments that reminded him of the monks' cubicles in a monastery so he used the Latin word for a small room, "cell."

Leeuwenhoek was one of the first to describe microscopic organisms using his hand-ground lenses.