He found the fifth star in Orion's Trapezium and postulated the phenomenon of diffraction.  
Lisa Jardine, the director of the Centre for Editing Lives and Letters, helped recover and place online a long-lost folio of the works of this scientist.  Henry Oldenburg, the Secretary of the Royal Society, tried to write this man out of history and may have leaked the details of an escapement he made for pocket watches.  This man built up a fortune while serving as the Surveyor of London under Christopher Wren following the Great Fire.  He's not Cardan, Hardy or Spicer, but a device that allows a rod to bend in all directions is sometimes called this man's (*) joint.  He found the fifth star in Orion's Trapezium and postulated the phenomenon of diffraction.  This man constructed an air pump for Robert Boyle.  He published detailed drawings of corks and snowflakes in his Micrographia and was a bitter rival of Isaac Newton.  For 10 points, identify this namesake of a spring law.
Lisa Jardine, the director of the Centre for Editing Lives and Letters, helped recover and place online a long-lost folio of the works of this scientist.  
Robert Hooke