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Chroniclers of his time called him ‘despicable’, ‘mistrustful’ and ‘jealous’, and a rivalrous Isaac Newton might have had the only surviving portrait of him burnt, but, three centuries on, Robert Hooke is now regarded as one of the great Enlightenment scientists.

Paris has long had the nickname "The City of Light", due to its role as a center of education during the Age of Enlightenment and, in the 1800s, due to its early implementation of electric lighting. It very nearly had its name associated with another form of radiation in 1910, however, thanks to a truly unique experiment performed in the most iconic spot in the city: the Eiffel Tower! The experiment, which was the first significant evidence of the existence of cosmic radiation, also highlights the challenges scientists experienced in the early 20th century and the ingenuity they used to overcome them