The illustration of the structure and movement of the wings of a blue fly (Calliphora vomitoria) is one of 38 sketches which were published for the first time in London in 1665, in a book called ‘Micrographia’, one of the seminal books in the history of science. Known as the first scientific bestseller, the book is a work of the English physicist, naturalist, and architect Robert Hooke (1635–1703).
Considered England’s Leonardo, as a member of the Royal Society, Hooke studied various natural phenomena and was one of the first scientists to use the most advanced technology of the epoch – the microscope. Thanks to the art of the 17th-century opticians, the instrument using a magnifying glass and having an insight into the world of the miniature was widely used across Europe. However, Hooke was the first researcher who was to use the microscope in a systematical manner and, based on his observations, published his work titled ‘Micrographia: or, some Physiological Descriptions of Minute Bodies made by Magnifying Glasses, with Observations and Inquiries thereupon.’
Along with the results of his observations, Hooke gave various insights into different disciplines, as well as his explanation of the nature of light – unlike Newton who spoke in favour of the particle theory of light, he believed in the wave theory of light. Written in English and contrary to most scientific works which were at the time published in Latin, Micrographia gained exceptional popularity and sold remarkably.
‘The wings of all species of insects are predominantly very beautiful objects and give no less pleasure to the mind to speculate than to the eye to observe,’ Hooke writes in Micrographia, which is replete with similar insights quite unexpected from a 17th-century man. In this book, for the first time in the history of science, Hooke introduced the term ‘cell’ as the basic unit of structure and function of living beings.
S.B./M.Đ.
Illustration: Schem. XXIV / blue fly, Robert Hooke, Micrographia (1665.) / Wikimedia Commons