Robert Boyle

Robert Boyle was born in Ireland, in 1627, even though he was raise in England. Boyle was the youngest of fourteen children. His father was the wealthiest man of the British Isles. Boyle studied at the world famous Eton College for four years and then he later traveled Europe. He never really attended a university but he did live at Oxford for a long time. During his six-year trip, Boyle learned all about science and medicine not excluding other important subjects as philosophy, mathematics and religion. Boyle never married and lived most of his life with his sister Katherine and was later buried next to her, when he died in 1691.

Robert Boyle was known as a natural philosopher and a chemist. Boyle is known as the father of modern Chemistry. He did a lot of work with air properties. He did many tests on the relationships between air pressure and air volume. He eventually came to the result that with more pressure, air would take up less volume. That sounds really simple today but in his time this was a great discovery. This law was later to be called Boyle’s Law. Many scientist think that the law shouldn’t be called Boyle’s Law because of Robert Hooke. Hooke assisted Boyle on his air experiments, well actually he did most of the work so many people think it should be named after Hooke. Boyle also did test on sound and air pressure. He wanted to see if sound exists in a vacuum. So he created an air pump that was small enough to be operated by one person.

Air pumps and vacuums were not the only things Boyle played with. He also did experiments with elements. In one of Boyle’s most famous books The Skeptical Chymist, Boyle talks about how Aristotle is wrong about the elements. Aristotle believes that there were only four elements, earth wind, fire, and water. Boyle tried to prove that things can be broken down into smaller and many more elements. This was a big deal because Aristotle is a well-known person back in this time. This would be like telling a noble prizewinner that he was all wrong.

Robert Boyle was a member and one of the founding fathers of the Royal Society. The Royal Society was a group of the smartest scientist, mathematicians, philosophers, and physicians. They could be called the first research group. They would have weekly meetings at Oxford U. and discuss their current works and share advice with each other. They also performed experiments with each other. The Royal society is still around today and is the most renowned science group in the world. If the government wants to know why something is happening in the world that involves science they go to the Royal Society. The Royal Society motto was "Nullius in Verbal," which means nothing in writing. They thought that all science should be done with experiments.

All science students have to thank Robert Boyle because he began the whole deal with making exact measurements, making sure there is a control group, and doing a experiment many times to make sure it is correct. Without Boyle figuring out that all these factors were very important, many experiments could have produced false data.

Boyle’s work is very important to me because without it we could have not figured out that volume is related to pressure. Scuba diving is directly related to Boyle’s Law, so without him scuba diving could have been put off to the next century. His work is also very important because the understanding of precise measurements. My medication could have been in too large a dose without precise measurements. I know Boyle is not the most exciting scientist but he is very important. He laid the framework for most chemists.

Bibliography

Galileo Project: May 1998, HYPERLINK http://es.rice.edu/ES/humsoc/Galileo/Catalog/Files/boyle.html

The Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation: May 1998, HYPERLINK http://www.woodrow.org/teachers/chemistry/institutes/1992/boyle.html

Andy Quepons

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