Robert Boyle: Difference between revisions
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Robert Boyle was born as his parents' fourteenth child and seventh son, the last to survive to adulthood. His mother died in childbirth a few weeks after Robert's third birthday. | Robert Boyle was born as his parents' fourteenth child and seventh son, the last to survive to adulthood. His mother died in childbirth a few weeks after Robert's third birthday. | ||
Robert's father, Richard Boyle, is remembered as the "Great Earl of Cork". Richard Boyle, who was not from rich background, had gone to Ireland in 1588 to seek his fortune. This was the time that England was colonizing all of Ireland, resulting in the complete conquest of Ireland by 1603. In a few years, | Robert's father, Richard Boyle, is remembered as the "Great Earl of Cork". Richard Boyle, who was not from rich background, had gone to Ireland in 1588 to seek his fortune. This was the time that England was colonizing all of Ireland, resulting in the complete conquest of Ireland by 1603. In a few years, Robert's father had risen to "Sir Richard Boyle, Knight, Lord Boyle, Baron of Youghall, Lord Dungarvan, Earl of Cork, Lord High Treasurer of Ireland". He managed this partly by good marriages, first (1595) to a rich widow, and second (1603) to the 17-year old Catherine Fenton, Robert's mother, daughter of the Secretary of State for Ireland, and by making influential friends in Court. At the time of Robert's birth his father's means amounted to two hundred and fifty pounds a day exclusive of houses and parks and it was said that he was the richest man of England. | ||
Robert Boyle was a competent linguist from an early age, and was reputed to be fluent in French and Latin at the age of eight. As a young boy of nine he went to Eton, together with his brother | Robert Boyle was a competent linguist from an early age, and was reputed to be fluent in French and Latin at the age of eight. As a young boy of nine he went to Eton, together with his brother | ||
Francis. After three years at Eton, the Boyle brothers engaged a French tutor and traveled for five years on the European continent, visiting [[France]], [[Switzerland]], and [[Italy]]. | Francis. After three years at Eton, the Boyle brothers engaged a French tutor and traveled for five years on the European continent, visiting [[France]], [[Switzerland]], and [[Italy]]. | ||
When visiting [[Geneva]] during his [[grand tour]], the fourteen year old Boyle underwent what he clearly felt to be a conversion from nominal, or at least unthinking, Christianity to committed Christianity and he promised himself then that he would live a pious Christian life. | When visiting [[Geneva]] during his [[grand tour]], the fourteen year old Boyle underwent what he clearly felt to be a conversion from nominal, or at least unthinking, Christianity to committed Christianity and he promised himself then that he would live a pious Christian life. Later he wrote Christian devotional and ethical essays and theological tracts on biblical language, the limits of reason, and the role of the natural philosopher as a Christian. He sponsored many religious missions, as well as the translation of the Scriptures into several languages. Throughout his life, he spread large parts of his income widely in charitable donations and he left most of his property to charity after his death. | ||
During their tour of Europe, the brothers were in Florence when [[Galileo Galilei]] died. The huge public attention that this event drew roused Robert's curiosity and he began reading widely about Galileo and his work; this seems to have been a key event in developing the young man's interest in science. A few months later, when the boys were back in Geneva, Francis was called home because of the Irish rebellion that started November 1641 and that put great strain on the finances of the "Great Earl of Cork". Much of Boyle senior's possessions were in Ireland and he had to pay large mercenary forces to keep the Irish rebels in hand. Earlier he had paid his sons a thousand pounds a year and now had difficulty to pay 250 pounds for the return of Francis | During their tour of Europe, the brothers were in Florence when [[Galileo Galilei]] died. The huge public attention that this event drew roused Robert's curiosity and he began reading widely about Galileo and his work; this seems to have been a key event in developing the young man's interest in science. A few months later, when the boys were back in Geneva, Francis was called home because of the Irish rebellion that started November 1641 and that put great strain on the finances of the "Great Earl of Cork". Much of Boyle senior's possessions were in Ireland and he had to pay large mercenary forces to keep the Irish rebels in hand. Earlier he had paid his sons a thousand pounds a year and now had difficulty to pay 250 pounds for the return of Francis to England—money that did not reach Francis but was embezzled on the way. Robert, staying behind with his tutor in Geneva and pursuing further studies, had to make ends meet. | ||
Robert and his tutor went back to England in 1644, arriving after his father, the "Great Earl", had died. He took up residence at his hereditary estate of [[Stalbridge]] in [[Dorset]]. Here he began, as a 17-year-old, a literary career writing ethical and devotional tracts, some of which employed stylistic and rhetorical models drawn from French popular literature, especially romance writings. Some of this work is remembered only because [[Jonathan Swift]] wrote a spoof on it: | |||
''Meditations Upon a Broomstick (According to the style and manner of the Hon. Robert Boyle's meditations)''.<ref>[http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Meditations_Upon_a_Broomstick Online]</ref> Also the young Boyle performed experiments during that time, mainly of the alchemist kind. | |||
During [[English civil war|England's civil war]] (1642–46), Robert's sister Katherine—Lady Ranelagh, the wife of Viscount Ranelagh—helped him in keeping out of political trouble. Although the Boyles had been Royalists, Katherine was a Parliamentary sympathizer and had influential Parliamentary friends. Katherine's house in London was a meeting place for many intellectuals of the day, including a group of men interested in science, who called themselves the "invisible college", and who began meeting in the mid-1640s to discuss the ideas of [[Francis Bacon]]. Through Katherine, Boyle became part of this band of inquirers, who devoted themselves to the cultivation of the "new philosophy." They met frequently in London, not only at Katherine's house but also at Gresham College; some of the members also had meetings at Oxford, and in that city Boyle went to reside in 1654. When twelve members met on 28 November 1660 at Gresham College after a lecture by [[Christopher Wren]], they decided to found "''a Colledge for the Promoting of Physico-Mathematicall Experimentall Learning''". The group included Wren himself and also Robert Boyle. A few years later the "Colledge" became the [[Royal Society of London]]. In 1680 he was invited to become president of the society, but he declined the honor because he was scrupulous about oaths. | |||
In 1652, after Cromwell had quelled the last unrest in Ireland, Boyle went there accompanied by his friend, the physician William Petty. The Irish situation had improved for the Boyle family and also for the finances of Robert, who received for life an income from his Irish estates of more than £ 3000 per annum. During his Irish trip Robert learned anatomy and physiology from his physician friend. | |||
Reading in 1657 of [[Otto von Guericke]]'s air-pump, he set himself with the assistance of Robert Hooke to a series of experiments on the properties of air. An account of this was published in 1660 under the title ''New Experiments PhysicoMechanical touching the spring of air and its effects''. While answering some critics, Boyle enunciated in 1662 the law, now generally known as [[ideal gas law|Boyle's law]], although the law is sometimes attributed to [[Edme Mariotte]], who published it in 1676. | |||
In 1661 Boyle published his first, and most influential, book about chemistry: ''The Sceptical Chemist'', in which he criticized the "''experiments whereby vulgar Spagyrists are wont to endeavour to evince their Salt, Sulphur and Mercury to be the true Principles of Things.''" (Spagyrists are alchemists and in a more narrow sense disciples of Paracelsus). | |||
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In 1668 he left Oxford for London where he resided at the house of his sister, Lady Ranelagh, in Pall Mall. About 1689 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, and his death occurred on the 30th of December of that year, just a week after that of the sister with whom he had lived for more than twenty years. He was buried in the churchyard of St Martin's in the Fields, his funeral sermon being preached by his friend Bishop Burnet. | |||
Boyle's great merit as a scientific investigator is that he carried out the principles which Bacon preached in the Novum Organum. Yet he would not avow himself a follower of Bacon or indeed of any other teacher: on several occasions he mentions that in order to keep his judgment as unprepossessed as' might be with any of the modern theories of philosophy, till 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. He himself was an alchemist; and believing the transmutation of metals to be a possibility, he carried out experiments in the hope of effecting it; and he was instrumental in obtaining the repeal, in 1689, of the statute of Henry IV. against multiplying gold and silver. 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, &c. - chemistry was his peculiar and favourite study. His first book on the subject was The Sceptical Chemist, published in 1661, in which he criticized 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. He advanced towards the modern view of elements as the undecomposable constituents of material bodies; and understanding 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. Applied chemistry had to thank him for improved methods and for an extended knowledge of individual substances. He also studied the chemistry of combustion and of respiration, and made experiments in physiology, where, however, he was hampered by the "tenderness of his nature" which kept him from anatomical dissections, especially of living animals, though he knew them to be "most instructing." Besides being a busy natural philosopher, Boyle devoted much time to theology, showing a very decided leaning to the practical side and an indifference to controversial polemics. At the Restoration he was favourably received at court, and in 1665 would have received the provostship of Eton, if he would have taken 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. He spent large sums in promoting the spread of Christianity, contributing liberally to missionary societies, and to the expenses of translating the Bible or portions of it into various languages. By his will he founded the Boyle lectures, for proving the Christian religion against "notorious infidels, viz. atheists, theists, pagans, Jews and Mahommedans," with the proviso that controversies between Christians were not to be mentioned. | Boyle's great merit as a scientific investigator is that he carried out the principles which Bacon preached in the Novum Organum. Yet he would not avow himself a follower of Bacon or indeed of any other teacher: on several occasions he mentions that in order to keep his judgment as unprepossessed as' might be with any of the modern theories of philosophy, till 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. He himself was an alchemist; and believing the transmutation of metals to be a possibility, he carried out experiments in the hope of effecting it; and he was instrumental in obtaining the repeal, in 1689, of the statute of Henry IV. against multiplying gold and silver. 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, &c. - chemistry was his peculiar and favourite study. His first book on the subject was The Sceptical Chemist, published in 1661, in which he criticized 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. He advanced towards the modern view of elements as the undecomposable constituents of material bodies; and understanding 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. Applied chemistry had to thank him for improved methods and for an extended knowledge of individual substances. He also studied the chemistry of combustion and of respiration, and made experiments in physiology, where, however, he was hampered by the "tenderness of his nature" which kept him from anatomical dissections, especially of living animals, though he knew them to be "most instructing." Besides being a busy natural philosopher, Boyle devoted much time to theology, showing a very decided leaning to the practical side and an indifference to controversial polemics. At the Restoration he was favourably received at court, and in 1665 would have received the provostship of Eton, if he would have taken 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. He spent large sums in promoting the spread of Christianity, contributing liberally to missionary societies, and to the expenses of translating the Bible or portions of it into various languages. By his will he founded the Boyle lectures, for proving the Christian religion against "notorious infidels, viz. atheists, theists, pagans, Jews and Mahommedans," with the proviso that controversies between Christians were not to be mentioned. | ||
Revision as of 03:42, 1 July 2009
Robert Boyle (Lismore Castle, Waterford County, Ireland, January 25, 1627 – London, December 30, 1691) was a British chemist and physicist, mainly known for Boyle's law (1662) that states that the pressure of a fixed amount of gas is inversely proportional to its volume. The experimental work that lead to this law was by means of an air pump invented in 1634 by Otto von Guericke, the Burgomaster of Magdeburg. The pump was greatly improved by Boyle in corporation with his assistant Robert Hooke.
Boyle propagated the idea that a chemical compound consists of small particles, which he called "corpuscles". He was one of the first to prepare phosphorus (see phosphorus for more details about the discovery of the element) and the first to describe hydrogen gas. Although he was probably the first chemist in the modern sense of the word, he still believed, as the alchemists did, that transmutation of individual chemical elements was possible.
Boyle's main contributions to chemistry are the following: (1) he realized that chemistry is worthy of study for its own sake, and not merely an aid to medicine and alchemy (although he did not reject the latter); (2) he introduced rigorous experimental methods into chemistry; (3) he gave a clear definition of a chemical element and showed by experiment that the four elements of Aristotle (earth, air, fire, and water) and the three principles of Paracelsus (mercury, sulfur, and salt) did not deserve to be called elements or principles at all, since none of them could be extracted from bodies, for instance, from metals.
Boyle was one of the founders of the Royal Society of London, chartered in 1662. He was a very religious Anglican who wrote extensively about the reconciliation of theology and natural philosophy (science).
Biography
Robert Boyle was born as his parents' fourteenth child and seventh son, the last to survive to adulthood. His mother died in childbirth a few weeks after Robert's third birthday.
Robert's father, Richard Boyle, is remembered as the "Great Earl of Cork". Richard Boyle, who was not from rich background, had gone to Ireland in 1588 to seek his fortune. This was the time that England was colonizing all of Ireland, resulting in the complete conquest of Ireland by 1603. In a few years, Robert's father had risen to "Sir Richard Boyle, Knight, Lord Boyle, Baron of Youghall, Lord Dungarvan, Earl of Cork, Lord High Treasurer of Ireland". He managed this partly by good marriages, first (1595) to a rich widow, and second (1603) to the 17-year old Catherine Fenton, Robert's mother, daughter of the Secretary of State for Ireland, and by making influential friends in Court. At the time of Robert's birth his father's means amounted to two hundred and fifty pounds a day exclusive of houses and parks and it was said that he was the richest man of England.
Robert Boyle was a competent linguist from an early age, and was reputed to be fluent in French and Latin at the age of eight. As a young boy of nine he went to Eton, together with his brother Francis. After three years at Eton, the Boyle brothers engaged a French tutor and traveled for five years on the European continent, visiting France, Switzerland, and Italy.
When visiting Geneva during his grand tour, the fourteen year old Boyle underwent what he clearly felt to be a conversion from nominal, or at least unthinking, Christianity to committed Christianity and he promised himself then that he would live a pious Christian life. Later he wrote Christian devotional and ethical essays and theological tracts on biblical language, the limits of reason, and the role of the natural philosopher as a Christian. He sponsored many religious missions, as well as the translation of the Scriptures into several languages. Throughout his life, he spread large parts of his income widely in charitable donations and he left most of his property to charity after his death.
During their tour of Europe, the brothers were in Florence when Galileo Galilei died. The huge public attention that this event drew roused Robert's curiosity and he began reading widely about Galileo and his work; this seems to have been a key event in developing the young man's interest in science. A few months later, when the boys were back in Geneva, Francis was called home because of the Irish rebellion that started November 1641 and that put great strain on the finances of the "Great Earl of Cork". Much of Boyle senior's possessions were in Ireland and he had to pay large mercenary forces to keep the Irish rebels in hand. Earlier he had paid his sons a thousand pounds a year and now had difficulty to pay 250 pounds for the return of Francis to England—money that did not reach Francis but was embezzled on the way. Robert, staying behind with his tutor in Geneva and pursuing further studies, had to make ends meet.
Robert and his tutor went back to England in 1644, arriving after his father, the "Great Earl", had died. He took up residence at his hereditary estate of Stalbridge in Dorset. Here he began, as a 17-year-old, a literary career writing ethical and devotional tracts, some of which employed stylistic and rhetorical models drawn from French popular literature, especially romance writings. Some of this work is remembered only because Jonathan Swift wrote a spoof on it: Meditations Upon a Broomstick (According to the style and manner of the Hon. Robert Boyle's meditations).[1] Also the young Boyle performed experiments during that time, mainly of the alchemist kind.
During England's civil war (1642–46), Robert's sister Katherine—Lady Ranelagh, the wife of Viscount Ranelagh—helped him in keeping out of political trouble. Although the Boyles had been Royalists, Katherine was a Parliamentary sympathizer and had influential Parliamentary friends. Katherine's house in London was a meeting place for many intellectuals of the day, including a group of men interested in science, who called themselves the "invisible college", and who began meeting in the mid-1640s to discuss the ideas of Francis Bacon. Through Katherine, Boyle became part of this band of inquirers, who devoted themselves to the cultivation of the "new philosophy." They met frequently in London, not only at Katherine's house but also at Gresham College; some of the members also had meetings at Oxford, and in that city Boyle went to reside in 1654. When twelve members met on 28 November 1660 at Gresham College after a lecture by Christopher Wren, they decided to found "a Colledge for the Promoting of Physico-Mathematicall Experimentall Learning". The group included Wren himself and also Robert Boyle. A few years later the "Colledge" became the Royal Society of London. In 1680 he was invited to become president of the society, but he declined the honor because he was scrupulous about oaths.
In 1652, after Cromwell had quelled the last unrest in Ireland, Boyle went there accompanied by his friend, the physician William Petty. The Irish situation had improved for the Boyle family and also for the finances of Robert, who received for life an income from his Irish estates of more than £ 3000 per annum. During his Irish trip Robert learned anatomy and physiology from his physician friend.
Reading in 1657 of Otto von Guericke's air-pump, he set himself with the assistance of Robert Hooke to a series of experiments on the properties of air. An account of this was published in 1660 under the title New Experiments PhysicoMechanical touching the spring of air and its effects. While answering some critics, Boyle enunciated in 1662 the law, now generally known as Boyle's law, although the law is sometimes attributed to Edme Mariotte, who published it in 1676.
In 1661 Boyle published his first, and most influential, book about chemistry: The Sceptical Chemist, in which he criticized the "experiments whereby vulgar Spagyrists are wont to endeavour to evince their Salt, Sulphur and Mercury to be the true Principles of Things." (Spagyrists are alchemists and in a more narrow sense disciples of Paracelsus).
(To be continued)
Reference
Desmond Reilly, Robert Boyle and his background, Journal of Chemical Education, vol. 28, pp. 178 - 183 (1951) Online
External link
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy A long thorough article about Boyle, his philosophy, theology, and science.