Robert Boyle Facts
Robert Boyle Facts
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| Interesting Robert Boyle Facts: |
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| Robert Boyle was born in Lismore, Ireland, in County Waterford. |
| He was the fourteenth child of Richard Boyle, the 1st Earl of Cork. |
| The Boyle's were very wealthy and the sons were sent to live with foster families to learn Irish. |
| Robert was tutored in Latin, Greek and French and was sent to Eton College when he was eight years old. |
| In 1641 he travelled to Florence with his French tutor and spent the winter studying with Galileo Galilei. |
| In 1644 Boyle returned to his estate in England and devoted the rest of his life to scientific study. |
| He was a member of the "Invisible College" which was a group of men who met frequently to discuss science and philosophy. |
| The members were dedicated to the New Philosophy which espoused observation and experimentation to further scientific understanding. |
| In 1659 he and his assistant, Robert Hooke, constructed a new, improved air pump. |
| Boyle continued his experiments with air and in 1660 published New Experiments Physico-Mechanical, Touching the Spring of the Air and its Effects. |
| Boyle discovered that air has weight and exerts pressure which led him to believe that it is made up of minute particles. |
| In volume two of this work he published Boyle's Law, stating that the volume of a gas varies inversely to the pressure of the gas. |
| He was an early advocate of corpuscularism, which rejected the Aristotelian view that earth, air, fire, and water were the defining physical elements and defined physical change in terms of particle motion. |
| In 1661 he wrote the Sceptical Chymist in which he argued for the scientific method of inquiry and the development of proof. |
| He called for a systematic organization of knowledge and the volume of scientific papers he left is impressive. |
| The Sceptical Chymist is considered a foundational work and established Boyle's reputation as the" Father of modern chemistry." |
| He experimented with the effects of air on sound waves. |
| He discovered that heating metal changes its weight but misinterpreted the cause. |
| In 1663 The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge was chartered with Boyle as a member of the council. |
| In 1668 he moved from Oxford to London and lived with his elder sister, Katherine Jones, Lady Ranelagh. |
| Boyle and his sister had a strong, intellectual partnership and shared scientific ideas and edited each other's manuscripts. |
| In 1689 he became seriously ill and withdrew from public life. |
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