Robert Boyle
Robert Boyle (25 January 1627 in Waterford - 31 December 1691 in London) was an Anglo-Irish natural philosopher, chemist, physicist and inventor. He was also a prominent Christian theologian.
As a scientist he is known primarily for the formulation of Boyle's law, as well as being generally regarded as the first modern chemist and thus one of the founders of modern chemistry. His work The Skeptical Chymist ( The skeptical chemist ) is considered a seminal work in the history of chemistry.
Biography
Robert Boyle was born at Lismore Castle, on the River Blackwater, County Waterford, Ireland, in 1627. He was the fourteenth child—out of fifteen in all—of English aristocrat Richard Boyle, Earl of Cork, and Catherine Fenton, his second wife. Richard Boyle had come to Ireland in 1588, engaging in politics and industry, and by the time Robert was born he owned large tracts of land and was interested in administration, in which he became Lord Treasurer of the Kingdom of Ireland.
Even as a child, Robert learned to speak Latin, Greek and French, being sent, after the death of his mother, at just eight years old he entered Eton College, of which he was headmaster sir Henry Wotton, friend of his father. At the age of fifteen he set out on a journey with a French tutor. Boyle lived for about two years in Genoa and visiting Italy in 1641, he wintered in Florence studying the paradoxes of Galileo Galilei, who died the following year.
Middle Years
Boyle returned to England from the Continent in mid-1644 with a keen interest in scientific research. His father had died the previous year, leaving him Stalbridge Manor in Dorset, England, and significant estates in the UK. County Limerick in Ireland which it had acquired during Cromwell's War. From then on, Robert dedicated his life to scientific research and soon found himself prominent in the group of researchers, known as the "Invisible College," who dedicated themselves to the cultivation of " new philosophy". They met frequently in London, often at Gresham College, and some of the members also met in Oxford.
From 1647 he made several visits to his estates in Ireland, and in 1652 he decided to move to Ireland, but was frustrated at his inability to progress with his work in chemistry. In a letter, he described Ireland as "a barbarous country where chemical spirits are so poorly understood chemical instruments cannot be obtained that it was difficult to have any hermetic thought there". In 1654 Boyle left Ireland for Oxford to continue with his work. At University College, on the High Street in Oxford, there is a plaque indicating the site where Cross Hall stood until the turn of the century XIX. Here Boyle rented several rooms from the apothecary who owned the Hall.
After reading in 1657 about Otto von Guericke's air pump, he devoted himself with the help of Robert Hooke to designing improvements in its construction, and in 1659 he developed the "Boylean machine" or & # 34; pneumatic motor & # 34;, with which he begins a series of experiments on the properties of air. Boyle's account of his work with the air pump was published in 1660 under the title New Physico-Mechanical Experiments, on the Elasticity of Air, and its Effects. Critics of this book included the Jesuit Francis Line (1595-1675), and while responding to his objections Boyle made the first mention of the law that the volume of a gas varies inversely with the pressure of the gas, which it is known in honor of him as Boyle's Law in England and in continental Europe as Boyle-Mariotte's law.
However, this relationship was originally formulated by Henry Power, in 1661. Boyle 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 already aware of Boyle's work.
In 1663 the Invisible College became the Royal Society of London for the Improvement of Natural Resources Knowledge, and the charter granted by Charles II of England appointed Boyle a member of the council. In 1680 he was elected president of the society, but declined the honor because of scruples about oaths.
Boyle wrote a list of 24 possible inventions that included "The Prolongation of Life," the "Art of Flying", "Perpetual Light", & #34;make very light and extremely hard armor", "A ship capable of sailing in all kinds of winds, and an unsinkable ship", "a practical and accurate way of determining longitudes" 34;, "drugs powerful enough to alter or exalt the imagination, awaken memory and other functions and appease pain, acquire innocent sleep, harmless dreams", etc. The list is extraordinary because, except for a few exceptions, almost all of them have come true.
During his residence at Oxford, Boyle was a Cavalier (royalists, boosters of royal power). The cavaliers are believed to have been created by royal order a few years before Boyle arrived at Oxford. The first period of Boyle's stay was marked by the successful actions of the parliamentary reactionary forces, so this period was the most secret in terms of the movements of the Cavaliers and therefore very little is known about the participation of boyle.
In 1668 he left Oxford for London, where he lived with his sister, lady Ranelagh, in Pall Mall.
Last years
In 1689 his health began to fail and little by little he withdrew from his public commitments, ceasing his communications with the Royal Society, and made public his desire to be excused from receiving guests, «except on very extraordinary occasions », on Tuesday and Friday morning and Wednesday and Saturday afternoon. In his spare time Boyle concentrated on "his spiritual contracting, arranging his papers," and preparing some important chemical investigations which he intended to leave "as a kind of hermetic legacy to the disciples, students of this art." His health declined in 1691, and he died on December 31 of that year, just a week after the death of the sister with whom he had lived for more than twenty years. Robert Boyle died of paralysis. He was buried in the churchyard of St Martin-in-the-Fields, his funeral oration was given by his friend, Bishop Gilbert Burnet.
Boyle Lectures
In his will, Robert Boyle left funds to establish a series of annual conferences to defend the Christian religion and against atheists and other infidels.
The first lecture, "A Refutation of Atheism", was held in 1692. It was conducted by Richard Bentley, who before presenting the paper corresponded with Isaac Newton. In the first letter the physicist had written that in carrying out his treatises on the system, his belief in God had determined his studies. The conferences continued through the rest of the 17th century, through the XVIII and XIX, until the end of the XX.
Since 2004 the Boyle Lectures have been re-established in the church of St Mary-le-Bow, in London (England). A prominent theologian or scientist is invited annually to address issues related to Christianity and the current understanding of the natural world.
As a Research Scientist
Boyle's great merit as a scientific researcher is that he materialized the principles that Francis Bacon preached in his work Novum Organum, although he did not consider himself a follower of Bacon or any other teacher. Since he was "provided with experiments"; to make his own judgments, he stated on numerous occasions that, in order to remain as free of prejudices as possible, he avoided the study of the atomic and Cartesian systems, as well as the Novum Organum itself, although he admitted to "consulting them occasionally." Nothing was more foreign to his temper than the unraveling of hypotheses. He appreciated the acquisition of knowledge as an end in itself and consequently benefited from a broader perspective on the ends of scientific inquiry than his predecessors had for centuries. This, on the other hand, does not mean that he did not pay attention to the practical applications of science, nor that he despised knowledge that was useful for use.
Boyle was an alchemist convinced of the possibility of the transmutation of metals, going so far as to carry out experiments with the hope of achieving it; he likewise was key in obtaining the abolition, in 1689, of the law of Henry IV against the creation of gold and silver by means of alchemy (Act Against Multipliers, 1404).
He made important contributions in the field of physics: Boyle's law, the discovery of the role of air in the propagation of sound, research on the expansive force in the freezing of water, on relative density, the refraction in crystals, electricity, color, hydrostatics, etc. Despite this, chemistry was always his favorite area. In 1661 he published The Skeptical Chemist in which he criticized the "experiments by which vulgar spagyrics endeavor to prove that their salt, sulfur, and mercury are the true principles of things." ».
For Boyle, chemistry was the science of the composition of substances and not an auxiliary art for the alchemist or the physicist. He advanced towards the modern view of the elements as the constituents of material bodies, and understood the difference between mixtures and compounds, making considerable progress in the techniques for the determination of their constituents, a process he named "analysis" #3. 4;. Furthermore, he came to assume that the elements were ultimately composed of particles of various types and sizes. In addition, he carried out studies on combustion and respiration discovering the intervention of oxygen, as well as experiments in physiology in which he was hampered by the "sensitivity of his nature", which prevented him from performing anatomical dissections, especially of live animals, despite knowing that they were "more instructive".
Theological interest
In addition to being a busy natural philosopher, Boyle devoted much time to Christian theology, displaying a penchant for practicalities and an indifference to polemics. With the Restoration he was well received at court, and in 1665 he might have been appointed Principal of Eton College had he been ordained, which he refused in the belief that his writings on religious subjects would be of greater value in so far as that they were the work of a layman and not of a paid minister of the church.
As director of the East India Company, he spent large sums in the evangelizing mission, contributing to missionary societies and to the translation of the Bible or fragments of it into different languages.
His magnum opus published a year before he died: The Virtuoso Christian (1690), would later be an influence that was taken up by John Locke in The Reasonableness of Christianity, as Delivered in the Scriptures.
Main works
Scientists
The following are some of the most important of his works:
- 1660 - New physical-mechanical experiments: Notes on the elasticity of the air and its effects
- 1661 - The skeptical chemical
- 1663 - Considerations on the usefulness of experimental natural philosophy (followed from a second part in 1671)
- 1664 - Colorful experiments and considerations, with observations on a diamond shining in the dark
- 1665 - New experiments and observations on the cold.
- 1666 - The hydrostatic paradox.
- 1666 - Origin of the forms and qualities according to the corpuscular philosophy.
- 1669 - A continuation of new physical-mechanical experiments. About the elasticity and weight of the air and its effects.
- 1670 - Treaties on the cosmic qualities of things, the temperature of the underground and submarine regions, the bottom of the sea, etc. with an introduction to the history of particular qualities.
- 1670 - New pneumatic experiments on breathing. (It proved that a reduction in environmental pressure can lead to bubble formation in the living tissue. This description of a snake in a vacuum was the first recorded description of decompression syndrome)
- 1672 - Origin and virtues of gems.
- 1673 - Tests on the strange subtlety, great efficiency, determine the nature of the effluence.
- 1674 - Two volumes of writings on the salinity of the sea, suspicions about the hidden realities of the air, cold, celestial magnets
- 1674 - Criticism of Hobbes' problems about vacuum.
- 1676 - Experiments and Notes on the mechanical origin or production of particular qualities, including some notes on electricity and magnetism.
- 1678 - Observations on an artificial substance that shines without any previous illustration.
- 1680 - Air noctilka.
- 1682 - New experiments and observations on the noctilca frost (a further continuation of your work on the air).
- 1684 - Memories for the natural history of human blood.
- 1685 - Short reports on the experimental natural history of mineral waters
- 1686 - A free consultation on the notion commonly received from nature
- 1690 - Hydrostatic medicine
- 1691 - Observations and physical experiments
Religious and philosophical
- 1648/1660 - "Seaphic Love", written in 1648, but not published until 1660
- 1663 - "An essay on the style of the Holy Scriptures"
- 1664 - "The Excellence of Theology Compared to Natural Philosophy"
- 1665 - "Occasional reflections on various topics"
- 1675 - "Some considerations about reconciliation between reason and religion, with a speech about the possibility of resurrection"
- 1687 - The martyrdom of Theodora and Didimo
- 1690 - "The Virtue Christian"
- In 1835, Henry Rogers compiled a series of Robert Boyle essays, published under the name of ‘Treaty remains the great veneration that the intellect of man owes to God, in things above reason, and in the style of the Holy Scriptures.’.
Awards and recognitions
- As founder of the Royal London Society for the Advancement of Natural Science, he was elected a member in 1663.
- Boyle-Mariotte's law is named in her honor.
- The Royal Society of Chemistry awards a biannual award in its honor, the Robert Boyle Award for Analytical Science.
- Moon crater Boyle carries this name in his honor.
- The asteroid (11967) Boyle also commemorates its name.