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Robert Boyle | |
---|---|
Born | (1627-01-25)25 January 1627 Lismore Castle, Lismore, County Waterford, Ireland |
Died | 31 December 1691(1691-12-31) (aged 64) London, England |
Education | Eton College |
Known for | |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Physics, chemistry |
Institutions | Royal Society |
Notable students | Robert Hooke |
Robert Boyle FRS[2] (/bɔɪl/; 25 January 1627 – 31 December 1691) was an Anglo-Irish[3] natural philosopher, chemist, physicist, alchemist and inventor. Boyle is largely regarded today as the first modern chemist, and therefore one of the founders of modern chemistry, and one of the pioneers of modern experimental scientific method. He is best known for Boyle's law,[4] which describes the inversely proportional relationship between the absolute pressure and volume of a gas, if the temperature is kept constant within a closed system.[5] Among his works, The Sceptical Chymist is seen as a cornerstone book in the field of chemistry. He was a devout and pious Anglican and is noted for his works in theology.[6][7]
Biography
Early years
Boyle was born at Lismore Castle, in County Waterford, Ireland, the seventh son and fourteenth child of The 1st Earl of Cork ('the Great Earl of Cork') and Catherine Fenton.[8] Lord Cork, then known simply as Richard Boyle, had arrived in Dublin from England in 1588 during the Tudor plantations of Ireland and obtained an appointment as a deputy escheator. He had amassed enormous wealth and landholdings by the time Robert was born and had been made Earl of Cork in October 1620. Catherine Fenton, Countess of Cork, was the daughter of Sir Geoffrey Fenton, the former Secretary of State for Ireland, who was born in Dublin in 1539, and Alice Weston, the daughter of Robert Weston, who was born in Lismore in 1541.[9]
As a child, Boyle was raised by a wet nurse,[10] as were his elder brothers. Boyle received private tutoring in Latin, Greek, and French and when he was eight years old, following the death of his mother, he, and his brother Francis, were sent to Eton College in England. His father's friend, Sir Henry Wotton, was then the provost of the college.[8]
During this time, his father hired a private tutor, Robert Carew, who had knowledge of Irish, to act as private tutor to his sons in Eton. However, "only Mr. Robert sometimes desires it [Irish] and is a little entered in it", but despite the "many reasons" given by Carew to draw their attention to it, "they practise the French and Latin but they affect not the Irish".[11] After spending over three years at Eton, Robert travelled abroad with a French tutor. They visited Italy in 1641 and remained in Florence during the winter of that year studying the "paradoxes of the great star-gazer", the elderly Galileo Galilei.[8]
Middle years
Robert returned to England from continental Europe in mid-1644 with a keen interest in scientific research.[12] His father, Lord Cork, had died the previous year and had left him the manor of Stalbridge in Dorset as well as substantial estates in County Limerick in Ireland that he had acquired. Robert then made his residence at Stalbridge House, between 1644 and 1652, and settled a laboratory where he conducted many experiments.[13] From that time, Robert devoted his life to scientific research and soon took a prominent place in the band of enquirers, known as the "Invisible College", who devoted themselves to the cultivation of the "new philosophy". They met frequently in London, often at Gresham College, and some of the members also had meetings at Oxford.[8] Having made several visits to his Irish estates beginning in 1647, Robert moved to Ireland in 1652 but became frustrated at his inability to make progress in his chemical work. In one letter, he described Ireland as "a barbarous country where chemical spirits were so misunderstood and chemical instruments so unprocurable that it was hard to have any Hermetic thoughts in it."[14]
All Souls, Oxford University shows the arms of Boyle's family in colonnade of the Great Quadrangle, opposite the arms of the Hill family of Shropshire, close by a sundial designed by Boyle's friend Christopher Wren.[15]
In 1654, Boyle left Ireland for Oxford to pursue his work more successfully. An inscription can be found on the wall of University College, Oxford, the High Street at Oxford (now the location of the Shelley Memorial), marking the spot where Cross Hall stood until the early 19th century. It was here that Boyle rented rooms from the wealthy apothecary who owned the Hall.
Reading in 1657 of Otto von Guericke's air pump, he set himself, with the assistance of Robert Hooke, to devise improvements in its construction. Guericke's air pump was large and required "the continual labour of two strong men for divers hours", and Boyle constructed one that could be operated conveniently on a desktop.[16] With the result, the "machina Boyleana" or "Pneumatical Engine", finished in 1659, he began a series of experiments on the properties of air and coined the term factitious airs.[4][8] An account of Boyle's work with the air pump was published in 1660 under the title New Experiments Physico-Mechanical, Touching the Spring of the Air, and its Effects.[8]
Among the critics of the views put forward in this book was a Jesuit, Francis Line (1595–1675), and it was while answering his objections that Boyle made his first mention of the law that the volume of a gas varies inversely to the pressure of the gas, which among English-speaking people is usually called Boyle's Law after his name.[8] The person who originally formulated the hypothesis was Henry Power in 1661. Boyle in 1662 included a reference to a paper written by Power, but mistakenly attributed it to Richard Towneley. In continental Europe, the hypothesis is sometimes attributed to Edme Mariotte, although he did not publish it until 1676 and was probably aware of Boyle's work at the time.[17]
In 1663 the Invisible College became The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, and the charter of incorporation granted by Charles II of England named Boyle a member of the council. In 1680 he was elected president of the society, but declined the honour from a scruple about oaths.[8]
He made a "wish list" of 24 possible inventions which included "the prolongation of life", the "art of flying", "perpetual light", "making armour light and extremely hard", "a ship to sail with all winds, and a ship not to be sunk", "practicable and certain way of finding longitudes", "potent drugs to alter or exalt imagination, waking, memory and other functions and appease pain, procure innocent sleep, harmless dreams, etc.". All but a few of the 24 have come true.[18][19]
External audio | |
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“The Almost Forgotten Story of Katherine Jones, Lady Ranelagh”, Distillations Podcast, Science History Institute |
In 1668 he left Oxford for London where he resided at the house of his elder sister Katherine Jones, Lady Ranelagh, in Pall Mall.[8] He experimented in the laboratory she had in her home and attended her salon of intellectuals interested in the sciences. The siblings maintained "a lifelong intellectual partnership, where brother and sister shared medical remedies, promoted each other's scientific ideas, and edited each other's manuscripts."[20] His contemporaries widely acknowledged Katherine's influence on his work, but later historiographers dropped discussion of her accomplishments and relationship to her brother from their histories.
Later years
In 1669 his health, never very strong, began to fail seriously and he gradually withdrew from his public engagements, ceasing his communications to the Royal Society, and advertising his desire to be excused from receiving guests, "unless upon occasions very extraordinary", on Tuesday and Friday forenoon, and Wednesday and Saturday afternoon. In the leisure thus gained he wished to "recruit his spirits, range his papers", and prepare some important chemical investigations which he proposed to leave "as a kind of Hermetic legacy to the studious disciples of that art", but of which he did not make known the nature. His health became still worse in 1691,[8] and he died on 31 December that year,[21] just a week after the death of his sister, Katherine, in whose home he had lived and with whom he had shared scientific pursuits for more than twenty years. Boyle died from paralysis. He was buried in the churchyard of St Martin-in-the-Fields, his funeral sermon being preached by his friend, Bishop Gilbert Burnet.[8] In his will, Boyle endowed a series of lectures that came to be known as the Boyle Lectures.
Scientific investigator
Boyle's great merit as a scientific investigator is that he carried out the principles which Francis Bacon espoused in the Novum Organum. Yet he would not avow himself a follower of Bacon, or indeed of any other teacher.[8]
On several occasions, he mentions that to keep his judgment as unprepossessed as might be with any of the modern theories of philosophy, until he was "provided of experiments" to help him judge of them. He refrained from any study of the atomical and the Cartesian systems, and even of the Novum Organum itself, though he admits to "transiently consulting" them about a few particulars. Nothing was more alien to his mental temperament than the spinning of hypotheses. He regarded the acquisition of knowledge as an end in itself, and in consequence, he gained a wider outlook on the aims of scientific inquiry than had been enjoyed by his predecessors for many centuries. This, however, did not mean that he paid no attention to the practical application of science nor that he despised knowledge which tended to use.[8]
Robert Boyle was an alchemist;[23] and believing the transmutation of metals to be a possibility, he carried out experiments in the hope of achieving it; and he was instrumental in obtaining the repeal, by the Royal Mines Act 1688 (1 Will. & Mar. c. 30), of the statute of Henry IV against multiplying gold and silver, the Gold and Silver Act 1403 (5 Hen. 4. c. 4).[24][8] With all the important work he accomplished in physics – the enunciation of Boyle's law, the discovery of the part taken by air in the propagation of sound, and investigations on the expansive force of freezing water, on specific gravities and refractive powers, on crystals, on electricity, on colour, on hydrostatics, etc. – chemistry was his peculiar and favourite study. His first book on the subject was The Sceptical Chymist, published in 1661, in which he criticised the "experiments whereby vulgar Spagyrists are wont to endeavour to evince their Salt, Sulphur and Mercury to be the true Principles of Things." For him chemistry was the science of the composition of substances, not merely an adjunct to the arts of the alchemist or the physician.[8]
He endorsed the view of elements as the undecomposable constituents of material bodies; and made the distinction between mixtures and compounds. He made considerable progress in the technique of detecting their ingredients, a process which he designated by the term "analysis". He further supposed that the elements were ultimately composed of particles of various sorts and sizes, into which, however, they were not to be resolved in any known way. He studied the chemistry of combustion and of respiration, and conducted experiments in physiology, where, however, he was hampered by the "tenderness of his nature" which kept him from anatomical dissections, especially vivisections, though he knew them to be "most instructing".[8]
Theological interests
In addition to philosophy, Boyle devoted much time to theology, showing a very decided leaning to the practical side and an indifference to controversial polemics. At the Restoration of Charles II of England in 1660, he was favourably received at court and in 1665 would have received the provostship of Eton College had he agreed to take holy orders, but this he refused to do on the ground that his writings on religious subjects would have greater weight coming from a layman than a paid minister of the Church.[8]
Moreover, Boyle incorporated his scientific interests into his theology, believing that natural philosophy could provide powerful evidence for the existence of God. In works such as Disquisition about the Final Causes of Natural Things (1688),[25] for instance, he criticised contemporary philosophers – such as René Descartes – who denied that the study of nature could reveal much about God. Instead, Boyle argued that natural philosophers could use the design apparently on display in some parts of nature to demonstrate God's involvement with the world. He also attempted to tackle complex theological questions using methods derived from his scientific practices. In Some Physico-Theological Considerations about the Possibility of the Resurrection (1675), he used a chemical experiment known as the reduction to the pristine state as part of an attempt to demonstrate the physical possibility of the resurrection of the body. Throughout his career, Boyle tried to show that science could lend support to Christianity.[26]
As a director of the East India Company[27] he spent large sums in promoting the spread of Christianity in the East, contributing liberally to missionary societies and to the expenses of translating the Bible or portions of it into various languages.[8] Boyle supported the policy that the Bible should be available in the vernacular language of the people. An Irish language version of the New Testament was published in 1602 but was rare in Boyle's adult life. In 1680–85 Boyle personally financed the printing of the Bible, both Old and New Testaments, in Irish.[28] In this respect, Boyle's attitude to the Irish language differed from the Protestant Ascendancy class in Ireland at the time, which was generally hostile to the language and largely opposed the use of Irish (not only as a language of religious worship).[29]
Boyle also had a monogenist perspective about race origin. He was a pioneer in studying races, and he believed that all human beings, no matter how diverse their physical differences, came from the same source: Adam and Eve. He studied reported stories of parents giving birth to different coloured albinos, so he concluded that Adam and Eve were originally white and that Caucasians could give birth to different coloured races. Boyle also extended the theories of Robert Hooke and Isaac Newton about colour and light via optical projection (in physics) into discourses of polygenesis,[30] speculating that maybe these differences were due to "seminal impressions". Taking this into account, it might be considered that he envisioned a good explanation for complexion at his time, due to the fact that now we know that skin colour is disposed by genes, which are actually contained in the semen. Boyle's writings mention that at his time, for "European Eyes", beauty was not measured so much in colour of skin, but in "stature, comely symmetry of the parts of the body, and good features in the face".[31] Various members of the scientific community rejected his views and described them as "disturbing" or "amusing".[32]
In his will, Boyle provided money for a series of lectures to defend the Christian religion against those he considered "notorious infidels, namely atheists, deists, pagans, Jews and Muslims", with the provision that controversies between Christians were not to be mentioned (see Boyle Lectures).[33][8]
Awards and honours
As a founder of the Royal Society, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 1663.[2] Boyle's law is named in his honour. The Royal Society of Chemistry issues a Robert Boyle Prize for Analytical Science, named in his honour. The Boyle Medal for Scientific Excellence in Ireland, inaugurated in 1899, is awarded jointly by the Royal Dublin Society and The Irish Times.[34] Launched in 2012, The Robert Boyle Summer School organized by the Waterford Institute of Technology with support from Lismore Castle, is held annually to honor the heritage of Robert Boyle.[35]
Important works
The following are some of the more important of his works:[8]
- 1660 – New Experiments Physico-Mechanical: Touching the Spring of the Air and their Effects
- 1661 – The Sceptical Chymist
- 1662 – Whereunto is Added a Defence of the Authors Explication of the Experiments, Against the Obiections of Franciscus Linus and Thomas Hobbes (a book-length addendum to the second edition of New Experiments Physico-Mechanical)
- 1663 – Considerations touching the Usefulness of Experimental Natural Philosophy (followed by a second part in 1671)
- 1664 – Experiments and Considerations Touching Colours, with Observations on a Diamond that Shines in the Dark
- 1665 – New Experiments and Observations upon Cold
- 1666 – Hydrostatical Paradoxes[37]
- 1666 – Origin of Forms and Qualities according to the Corpuscular Philosophy. (A continuation of his work on the spring of air demonstrated that a reduction in ambient pressure could lead to bubble formation in living tissue. This description of a viper in a vacuum was the first recorded description of decompression sickness.)[38]
- 1669 – A Continuation of New Experiments Physico-mechanical, Touching the Spring and Weight of the Air, and Their Effects
- 1670 – Tracts about the Cosmical Qualities of Things, the Temperature of the Subterraneal and Submarine Regions, the Bottom of the Sea, &tc. with an Introduction to the History of Particular Qualities
- 1672 – Origin and Virtues of Gems
- 1673 – Essays of the Strange Subtilty, Great Efficacy, Determinate Nature of Effluviums
- 1674 – Two volumes of tracts on the Saltiness of the Sea, Suspicions about the Hidden Realities of the Air, Cold, Celestial Magnets
- 1674 – Animadversions upon Mr. Hobbes's Problemata de Vacuo
- 1676 – Experiments and Notes about the Mechanical Origin or Production of Particular Qualities, including some notes on electricity and magnetism
- 1678 – Observations upon an artificial Substance that Shines without any Preceding Illustration
- 1680 – The Aerial Noctiluca
- 1682 – New Experiments and Observations upon the Icy Noctiluca (a further continuation of his work on the air)
- 1684 – Memoirs for the Natural History of the Human Blood
- 1685 – Short Memoirs for the Natural Experimental History of Mineral Waters
- 1686 – A Free Enquiry into the Vulgarly Received Notion of Nature
- 1690 – Medicina Hydrostatica
- 1691 – Experimenta et Observationes Physicae
Among his religious and philosophical writings were:
- 1648 (1659) – Some Motives and Incentives to the Love of God, often known by its running head Seraphic Love, written in 1648, but not published until 1659
- 1663 – Some Considerations Touching the Style of the H[oly] Scriptures
- 1664 – Excellence of Theology compared with Natural Philosophy
- 1665 – Occasional Reflections upon Several Subjects, which was ridiculed by Swift in Meditation Upon a Broomstick, and by Butler in An Occasional Reflection on Dr Charlton's Feeling a Dog's Pulse at Gresham College
- 1675 – Some Considerations about the Reconcileableness of Reason and Religion, with a Discourse about the Possibility of the Resurrection
- 1687 – The Martyrdom of Theodora, and of Didymus
- 1690 – The Christian Virtuoso
See also
- Ambrose Godfrey – German-English chemist, inventor of the fire extinguisher (1660–1741), phosphorus manufacturer who started as Boyle's assistant
- An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump – 1768 oil-on-canvas painting by Joseph Wright of Derby, a painting of a demonstration of one of Boyle's experiments
- Boyle temperature – Thermodynamic property of real gasPages displaying wikidata descriptions as a fallback, thermodynamic quantity named after Boyle
- George Starkey – Colonial American alchemist, medical practitioner and writer
- Invisible College – Informal group of scholars, as in Royal Society of London's precursor groups
References
- ^ Vere Claiborne Chappell (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Locke, Cambridge University Press, 1994, p. 56.
- ^ a b "Fellows of the Royal Society". London: Royal Society. Archived from the original on 16 March 2015.
- ^ "Robert Boyle". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 24 February 2016.
- ^ a b Acott, Chris (1999). "The diving "Law-ers": A brief resume of their lives". South Pacific Underwater Medicine Society Journal. 29 (1). ISSN 0813-1988. OCLC 16986801. Archived from the original on 2 April 2011. Retrieved 17 April 2009.
{{cite journal}}
: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link) - ^ Levine, Ira N. (2008). Physical chemistry (6th ed.). Dubuque, IA: McGraw-Hill. p. 12. ISBN 9780072538625.
- ^ MacIntosh, J. J.; Anstey, Peter. "Robert Boyle". In Zalta, Edward N. (ed.). Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
- ^ O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F., "Robert Boyle", MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive, University of St Andrews
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Boyle, Robert". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
- ^ "Catherine Fenton", Family Ghosts, archived from the original on 21 September 2013, retrieved 9 June 2011
- ^ McCartney, Mark; Whitaker, Andrew (2003), Physicists of Ireland: Passion and Precision, London: Institute of Physics Publishing
- ^ Canny, Nicholas (1982), The Upstart Earl: a study of the social and mental world of Richard Boyle, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 127
- ^ See biographies of Robert Boyle at [1], "Robert Boyle". Archived from the original on 16 May 2008. Retrieved 6 May 2008., "Boyle summary". Archived from the original on 13 April 2008. Retrieved 6 May 2008. and [2].
- ^ "BBC - History - Robert Boyle". BBC Online. 2014. Retrieved 26 September 2021.
- ^ Silver, Brian L. (2000). The ascent of science. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 114. ISBN 978-0-19-513427-8.
- ^ History of Science Museum Oxford University. "The Virtual Oxford Science Walk".
- ^ B. West, John (2015), "Robert Boyle's Landmark Book of 1660 with the First Experiments on Rarified Air", Essays on the History of Respiratory Physiology, New York, NY: Springer New York, pp. 37–54, doi:10.1007/978-1-4939-2362-5_4, ISBN 978-1-4939-2361-8, retrieved 28 March 2023
- ^ Brush, Stephen G. (2003). The Kinetic Theory of Gases: An Anthology of Classic Papers with Historical Commentary. History of Modern Physical Sciences Vol 1. Imperial College Press. ISBN 978-1860943478.
- ^ "Robert Boyle's prophetic scientific predictions from the 17th century go on display at the Royal Society". Telegraph.co.uk. 3 June 2010. Archived from the original on 12 January 2022. Retrieved 24 February 2016.
- ^ "Robert Boyle's Wish list". Telegraph.co.uk. Archived from the original on 12 January 2022. Retrieved 11 October 2016.
- ^ DiMeo, Michelle (4 February 2014). "'Such a Sister Became Such a Brother': Lady Ranelagh's Influence on Robert Boyle". Philadelphia Area Center for History of Science. Archived from the original on 2 December 2016. Retrieved 5 February 2014.
- ^ Hunter, Michael (2003). Robert Boyle Reconsidered (Reprint ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. xvii. ISBN 978-0521892674.
- ^ Boas Hall, Marie (August 1967). "Robert Boyle". Scientific American. 217 (2): 96–102. Bibcode:1967SciAm.217b..96B. doi:10.1038/scientificamerican0867-96. ISSN 0036-8733.
- ^ More, Louis Trenchard (January 1941). "Boyle as Alchemist". Journal of the History of Ideas. 2 (1). University of Pennsylvania Press: 61–76. doi:10.2307/2707281. JSTOR 2707281.
- ^ MacIntosh, J. J.; Anstey, Peter (2010). "Robert Boyle". In Zalta, Edward N. (ed.). The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall ed.). note 4.
- ^ U-M Library Digital Collections.
- ^ Wragge-Morley, Alexander (2018). "Robert Boyle and the representation of imperceptible entities". The British Journal for the History of Science. 51 (1): 1–24. doi:10.1017/S0007087417000899. ISSN 0007-0874. PMID 29103389. S2CID 4334846.
- ^ One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Cousin, John William (1910). "Boyle, The Hon. Robert". A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature. London: J. M. Dent & Sons – via Wikisource.
- ^ Baines Reed, Talbot (1887), A History of the Old English Letter Foundries, Elliot Stock, pp. 189–90. Also Greenslade, S.L, ed. (1963), The Cambridge History of the Bible: The West from the Reformation to the Present Day, Cambridge University Press, pp. 172–73, ISBN 9780521290166.
- ^ Hastings, Adrian (1997). The Construction of Nationhood: Ethnicity, Religion, and Nationalism. Cambridge: Cambridge University. p. 86.
- ^ Boyle, Jen E. (2010). Anamorphosis in early modern literature : mediation and affect. Farnham, Surrey, [England]: Ashgate. p. 74. ISBN 978-1409400691.
- ^ "Experiments and Considerations Touching Colours (1664) (ebook)". www.gutenberg.net. Gutenberg Project. pp. 160–61. Retrieved 11 October 2016.
- ^ Palmeri, Frank (2006). Humans And Other Animals in Eighteenth-Century British Culture: Representation, Hybridity, Ethics. pp. 49–67.
- ^ "The Boyle Lecture". St. Marylebow Church.
- ^ "RDS–Irish Times Boyle Medal for Scientific Excellence". RDS.ie. Archived from the original on 6 May 2016. Retrieved 11 October 2016.
- ^ "The Robert Boyle Summer School". Retrieved 11 October 2016.
- ^ Arthur W. J. G. Ord-Hume (2006). Perpetual Motion: The History of an Obsession. Adventures Unlimited Press. ISBN 1-931882-51-7.
- ^ Cf. Hunter (2009), p. 147. "It forms a kind of sequel to Spring of the Air ... but although Boyle notes he might have published it as part of an appendix to that work, it formed a self-contained whole, dealing with atmospheric pressure with particular reference to liquid masses"
- ^ Acott, C. (1999). "A brief history of diving and decompression illness". South Pacific Underwater Medicine Society Journal. 29 (2). ISSN 0813-1988. OCLC 16986801. Archived from the original on 27 June 2008. Retrieved 17 April 2009.
{{cite journal}}
: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
Further reading
- M. A. Stewart (ed.), Selected Philosophical Papers of Robert Boyle, Indianapolis: Hackett, 1991.
- Fulton, John F., A Bibliography of the Honourable Robert Boyle, Fellow of the Royal Society. Second edition. Oxford: At the Clarendon Press, 1961.
- Hunter, Michael, Boyle : Between God and Science, New Haven : Yale University Press, 2009. ISBN 978-0-300-12381-4
- Hunter, Michael, Robert Boyle, 1627–91: Scrupulosity and Science, The Boydell Press, 2000
- Principe, Lawrence, The Aspiring Adept: Robert Boyle and His Alchemical Quest, Princeton University Press, 1998
- Shapin, Stephen; Schaffer, Simon, Leviathan and the Air-Pump.
- Ben-Zaken, Avner, "Exploring the Self, Experimenting Nature", in Reading Hayy Ibn-Yaqzan: A Cross-Cultural History of Autodidacticism (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2011), pp. 101–126. ISBN 978-0801897399
- Boyle's published works online
- The Sceptical Chymist – Project Gutenberg
- Essay on the Virtue of Gems Archived 19 August 2007 at the Wayback Machine – Gem and Diamond Foundation
- Experiments and Considerations Touching Colours Archived 20 August 2007 at the Wayback Machine – Gem and Diamond Foundation
- Experiments and Considerations Touching Colours – Project Gutenberg
- Boyle Papers University of London
- Hydrostatical Paradoxes – Google Books
- "A disquisition about the final causes of natural things wherein it is inquir'd, whether, and (if at all) with what cautions, a naturalist should admit them? By T.H. R.B. Fellow of the Royal Society. To which are subjoyn'd, by way of appendix some uncommon observations about vitiated sight. By the same author". U-M Library Digital Collections. 11 October 1688. Retrieved 27 April 2024.
External links
- Robert Boyle, Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
- Works by or about Robert Boyle at the Internet Archive
- Readable versions of Excellence of the mechanical hypothesis, Excellence of theology, and Origin of forms and qualities
- Robert Boyle Project, Birkbeck, University of London
- Summary juxtaposition of Boyle's The Sceptical Chymist and his The Christian Virtuoso
- The Relationship between Science and Scripture in the Thought of Robert Boyle
- Robert Boyle and His Alchemical Quest : Including Boyle's "Lost" Dialogue on the Transmutation of Metals, Princeton University Press, 1998, ISBN 0-691-05082-1
- Robert Boyle's (1690) Experimenta et considerationes de coloribus Archived 26 November 2018 at the Wayback Machine – digital facsimile from the Linda Hall Library
11 Annotations
First Reading
Pedro • Link
Mr. Boyle.
This definitely refers to Robert Boyle, but as yet there are no annotations. The previous references to a Mr. Boyle are in 1660, and the background points to Charles Boyle, and it is there that the annotations have up to now been sited…
http://www.pepysdiary.com/encyclo…
Michael Robinson • Link
The Robert Boyle Project, based at Birkbeck College, University of London, includes links to the Boyle Papers as they become available:
http://www.bbk.ac.uk/Boyle/
Paul Chapin • Link
Robert Boyle's views of the possibilities of the future
The following article, by Charity Brown, appeared in The Washington Post on June 22, 2010. It can be accessed on line (probably for a limited time) at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-…
In the 1660s, English chemist Robert Boyle wrote an extraordinary document, a combination of wish list and predictions of what science might achieve in the coming centuries. Found in his private papers, the list is a centerpiece of the exhibition "The Royal Society: 350 Years of Science," running until November at the society's headquarters in London.
Boyle -- who was a founder of the society, the world's oldest scientific academy in continuous existence -- seems to have envisioned airplanes, organ transplants, submarines, commercial agriculture and psychotropic drugs. Some wishes, such as "The Recovery of Youth, or at least some of the marks of it, as new Teeth, new Hair colour'd as in youth," seem to have come true, while others, such as "The Transmutation of Species," remain unfulfilled.
This is the first time the papers have been made available for public viewing. "This document provides us with an amazing window into one of the most extraordinary minds of the 17th century," says Jonathan Ashmore, an exhibition spokesman.
Samples from Boyle's list:
-- The Prolongation of Life.
-- The Recovery of Youth, or at least some of the Marks of it, as new Teeth, new Hair colour'd as in youth.
-- The Art of Flying.
-- The Art of Continuing long under water, and exercising functions freely there.
-- The Cure of Wounds at a Distance.
-- The Cure of Diseases at a distance or at least by Transplantation.
-- The Emulating of Fish without Engines by Custome and Education only.
-- The Acceleration of the Production of things out of Seed.
-- The makeing of Glass Malleable.
-- The Transmutation of Species in Mineralls, Animals, and Vegetables.
-- The making Armor light and extremely hard.
-- The use of Pendulums at Sea and in Journeys, and the Application of it to watches.
-- Potent Druggs to alter or Exalt Imagination, Waking, Memory, and other functions, and appease pain, procure innocent sleep, harmless dreams, etc.
-- A Ship to saile with All Winds, and A Ship not to be Sunk.
-- Freedom from Necessity of much Sleeping exemplify'd by the Operations of Tea and what happens in Mad-Men.
-- Pleasing Dreams and physicall Exercises exemplify'd by the Egyptian Electuary and by the Fungus mentioned by the French Author.
-- Great Strength and Agility of Body exemplify'd by that of Frantick Epileptick and Hystericall persons.
-- A perpetuall Light.
Second Reading
Bill • Link
Robert Boyle, who was born the fame year in which lord Bacon died, seems to have inherited the penetrating and inquisitive genius of that illustrious philosopher. We are at a loss which to admire most, his extensive knowledge, or his exalted piety. These excellencies kept pace with each other: but the former never carried him to vanity, nor the latter to enthusiasm. He was himself The christian virtuoso which he has described. Religion never sat more easy upon a man, nor added greater dignity to a character. He particularly applied himself to chymistry; and made such discoveries in that branch of science, as can scarce be credited upon less authority than his own. His doctrine of the weight and spring of the air, a fluid on which our health and our very being depend, gained him all the reputation he deserved. Ob. 30 Dec. 1691, Æt. 65.
---A Biographical History of England. J. Granger, 1775.
Terry Foreman • Link
Robert Boyle
In Our Time
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Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the life and work of Robert Boyle, a pioneering scientist and a founder member of the Royal Society. Born in Ireland in 1627, Boyle was one of the first natural philosophers to conduct rigorous experiments, laid the foundations of modern chemistry and derived Boyle's Law, describing the physical properties of gases. In addition to his experimental work he left a substantial body of writings about philosophy and religion; his piety was one of the most important factors in his intellectual activities, prompting a celebrated dispute with his contemporary Thomas Hobbes. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b…
Terry Foreman • Link
Boyle Lectures
The Boyle Lectures were named after Robert Boyle, son of Richard Boyle, 1st Earl of Cork, and a prominent natural philosopher of the 17th century. Under the terms of his will Boyle endowed a series of lectures or sermons (originally eight each year) which were to serve as a public forum in which to consider the relationship between Christianity and the new natural philosophy (what we today term 'science') then emerging in European society....The lecturers were specifically charged to prove the truth of the Christian religion against infidels, without descending to any controversies among Christians; and to answer new difficulties, scruples, etc....The Boyle lectures were revived in 2004.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boy…
San Diego Sarah • Link
Robert Boyle moved to Oxford in 1654. He proved to be an extremely competent physicist and gave his name to the law that relates the pressure and the volume of a gas.
Boyle stayed in Oxford until 1668 when he moved to London. If he was a regular attendee at the Wednesday afternoon lectures at Gresham College, he must also have been a regular traveler.
Gresham College, then in Bishopsgate Street, was a 120-mile round trip from his home near the Three Tuns public house in Oxford. With more than a day's ride each way he would have had little time left for anything else, so it seems safe to assume Robert Boyle did not make it his usual custom to attend the lectures on Wednesday afternoons.
But Boyle did sometimes come up to London to stay with his sister, Katherine Boyle Jones, Lady Ranelagh in Chelsea, as John Evelyn visited him there on 7 September 1660.
Lots of information on all the Boyles from https://www.archive.org/stream/cu…
San Diego Sarah • Link
In the Spring of 1669 Cosmo, the future Grand Duke of Turin, visited the London home of Robert Boyle.
I've corrected incorrect spelling of names I knew, scanning errors I could guess, and made more paragraphs. Sorry if I guessed incorrectly.
After which he went in his carriage to the house of Mr. Robert Boyle, whose works have procured him the reputation of being one of the brightest geniuses in England.
This gentleman not only reduced to practice his observations on natural philosophy, in the clearest and most methodical manner, rejecting the assistance of scholastic disputations and controversies, and satisfying the curiosity with physical experiments, but, prompted by his natural goodness, and his anxiety to communicate to nations the most remote and idolatrous the information necessary to the knowledge of God, caused translations of the Bible into the Oriental languages to be printed and circulated, in order to make them acquainted with the Scriptures; and has endeavored still further to lead the most rude and vicious to moral perfection, by various works, which he has himself composed.
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Indeed, if in his person the true belief had been united with the correctness of a moral life, nothing would have remained to be desired; but this philosopher, having been born and brought up in heresy, is necessarily ignorant of the principles of the true religion, knowing the Roman Catholic church only by the controversial books of the Anglican sect, of which he is a most strenuous defender, and a most constant follower; his blindness, therefore, on this subject, is no way compatible with his great erudition.
He shewed his highness, with an ingenious pneumatic instrument invented by himself, and brought to perfection by Christian Huygens of Zuylichem, many beautiful experiments to discover the effect of the rarefaction and compression of the air upon bodies, by observing what took place with animals when exposed to it: and hence may be learned the cause of rheumatisms, catarrhs, and other contagious disorders produced by air, and of various natural indispositions.
It was curious to see an experiment on the change of colors; two clear waters, on being poured into one another, becoming red, and by the addition of another red, becoming clear again; and the experiment of an animal shut up in a vacuum, and the whole exposed to the pressure of the air.
San Diego Sarah • Link
PART 2
There in as an instrument which shews of itself the changes of the air which take place in the 24 hours, of wind, rain, cold, and heat, by means of a watch, a thermometer, a mariner's compass, and a small sail like that of a windmill, which sets an hand in motion, that makes marks with a pencil as it goes round; there was also another instrument of a most curious construction, by means of which a person who has never learned may draw any object whatever.
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He shewed also to his highness, amongst other curiosities, certain lenses of a single glass, worked facet-wise, which multiplied objects; a globe of the moon of a peculiar construction, and several other things worthy of attention.
Having gratified his curiosity in the most agreeable manner, and it being now near noon, his highness returned home; ...
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From:
TRAVELS OF COSMO THE THIRD, GRAND DUKE OF TUSCANY,
THROUGH ENGLAND,
DURING THE REIGN OF KING CHARLES THE SECOND (1669)
TRANSLATED FROM THE ITALIAN MANUSCRIPT
https://archive.org/stream/travel…
His highness, Cosmo, must be considered only as a traveler. Under his direction, the narrator of the records was Count Lorenzo Magalotti, afterwards Secretary to the Academy del Cimento, and one of the most learned and eminent characters of the court of Ferdinand II.
Third Reading
San Diego Sarah • Link
In 1662 Robert Boyle formulated Boyle's Law (also called the Boyle–Mariotte law, or Mariotte's law), which is an experimental gas law that describes the relationship between pressure and volume of a confined gas.
The astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson posted this explanation of its fundermentals, which I think we'll all understand:
Is Hell Exothermic or Endothermic?
The following is an actual question given on a University of Washington chemistry mid-term:
"Is Hell exothermic (gives off heat) or endothermic (absorbs heat)? Support your answer with a proof."
Most of the students wrote proofs of their beliefs using Boyle’s Law (gas cools off when it expands and heats up when it is compressed) or some variant.
But one student wrote the following:
First, we need to know how the mass of Hell is changing in time. So, we need to know the rate that souls are moving into Hell and the rate they are leaving.
I think that we can safely assume that once a soul gets to Hell, it will not leave. Therefore, no souls are leaving.
As for how many souls are entering Hell, let’s look at the different religions that exist in the world today. Some of these religions state that if you are not a member of their religion, you will go to Hell. Since there are more than one of these religions and since people do not belong to more than one religion, we can project that all people and all souls go to Hell.
With birth and death rates as they are, we can expect the number of souls in Hell to increase exponentially.
Now, we look at the rate of change of the volume in Hell because Boyle’s Law states that in order for the temperature and pressure in Hell to stay the same, the volume of Hell has to expand as souls are added. This gives two possibilities.
1) If Hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls enter Hell, then the temperature and pressure in Hell will increase until all Hell breaks loose.
2) Of course, if Hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of souls in Hell, then the temperature and pressure will drop until Hell freezes over.
So which is it ?
If we accept the postulate given to me by Ms. Therese Banyan during my Freshman year that "It will be a cold night in Hell before I sleep with you," and take into account the fact that I still have not succeeded in having sexual relations with her, then (2) cannot be true, and thus I am sure that Hell is exothermic.
The student got the only A.
San Diego Sarah • Link
Galileo also studied hell:
In Renaissance Italy, there was significant academic interest in the literal dimensions of hell as it was described in Dante Alighieri’s Inferno.
When Galileo was 24, Dante scholars were fiercely divided between two calculations made by 2 different Renaissance thinkers. Galileo, already a prominent mathematician, was invited by the Accademia Fiorentina (Florence Academy) to make his own estimation.
He ultimately affirmed one of the previous results, but made a major error when calculating the thickness of hell’s domed roof. He multiplied the width and thickness by the same amount before realizing that buildings don’t scale that way.
Later, Galileo published the square-cube law, which states that as an object increases in size, its volume gets larger than its surface area, meaning that supports need to grow disproportionately thicker than the rest of a structure. According to the law, there wouldn’t be a lot of Dante’s hell left if the roof were as thick as it needed to be.
Extracted fron https://historyfacts.com/famous-f…