November 3, 2025
Newton beef, but make it neon
Robert Hooke's "Cyberpunk” Letter to Gottfried Leibniz
Hooke’s 1681 letter goes full cyberpunk: fans cheer, purists nitpick, everyone wants receipts
TLDR: A blogger is transcribing a 1681 Hooke-to-Leibniz letter and framing it as proto‑cyberpunk hacker energy. The crowd is split between loving the drama, cringing at the hype, and demanding the missing transcript and the famous “Let us calculate” line—making history feel urgent and fun again.
A 1681 letter from scientist Robert Hooke to math legend Gottfried Leibniz just got rebranded as “cyberpunk before cyberpunk”—and the comments section instantly turned into a late‑night panel show. The post pitches Hooke as an early “hacker” type riffing on a universal language for science (Leibniz’s dream of a reasoning tool you could calculate with), backed by quotes from Norbert Wiener and Leibniz, plus Hooke’s own spicy line about authority being the enemy of progress. Cue reactions: one crowd loves the “genius celebrity gossip” angle, another calls the vibe “middle‑schoolers think history is totally rad”, and the nerd gatekeepers want the “Let us calculate” quote front and center. There’s even a meme‑y detour: someone notes Hooke once presented cannabis to the Royal Society, spawning jokes about whether this letter was written in a smoky brainstorm. But the biggest drama? Receipts. The author says the transcription is “90%” done, yet readers only see the scan and ask, “Where’s the text?” In short: bold framing, nostalgic Newton beef, hacker vibes, and a community split between hype, cringe, and fact‑checking. The fandom wants their transcript—then they’ll let Hooke be neon.
Key Points
- •The article centers on a 1681 letter from Robert Hooke to Gottfried Leibniz, with a Royal Society scan linked.
- •The author is transcribing the letter and estimates 90% accuracy due to challenging handwriting.
- •Quotes from Norbert Wiener, Leibniz, and Hooke frame themes of cybernetics and a universal language for reasoning.
- •The article positions Hooke’s letter as illustrative of an early “hacker” mindset and plans further writing on Hooke’s life and cryptography.
- •Two related archival items are referenced: a popular science article by Alan Turing on computational undecidability and a speech by Ove Arup about an industrial computer.