Robert Boyle
Robert Boyle | |
---|---|
Born | Lismore Castle, Lismore, County Waterford, Ireland | 25 January 1627
Died | 31 December 1691 London, England | (aged 64)
Education | Eton College |
Known for | |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Physics, chemistry |
Institutions | Royal Society |
Notable students | Robert Hooke |
Robert Boyle
Biography
Early years
Boyle was born at
As a child, Boyle was raised by a
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 turn their attentions to it, "they practice 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
In 1663 the Invisible College became
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 | |
---|---|
“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
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
He endorsed the view of elements as the undecomposable constituents of material bodies; and made the distinction between
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
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), for instance, he criticised contemporary philosophers – such as
As a director of the
Boyle also had a
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).[32][8]
Awards and honours
As a founder of the Royal Society, he was elected a
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[36]
- 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.)[37]
- 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 Butlerin 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 gas , 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.
- ^ OCLC 16986801. Archived from the original on 2 April 2011. Retrieved 17 April 2009.)
{{cite journal}}
: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link - 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 public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Boyle, Robert". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the
- ^ "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.
- ISBN 978-0-19-513427-8.
- ^ History of Science Museum Oxford University. "The Virtual Oxford Science Walk".
- ISBN 978-1-4939-2361-8, retrieved 28 March 2023
- ISBN 978-1860943478.[page needed]
- ^ "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.
- ISBN 978-0521892674.
- ISSN 0036-8733.
- JSTOR 2707281.
- ^ MacIntosh, J. J.; Anstey, Peter (2010). "Robert Boyle". In Zalta, Edward N. (ed.). The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall ed.). note 4.
- 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.
- ISBN 9780521290166.
- Cambridge University. p. 86.
- 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.
- 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"
- 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.
- 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
External links
- Robert Boyle, Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
- Works by or about Robert Boyle at 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, 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