Robert Boyle is considered both the founder of modern chemistry and the greatest English
scientist to live during the first thirty years of the existence of the Royal Society.
He was not only a chemist and a physicist as we know him to be, but also an avid
theologian, a philanthropist, an essayist, and a beginner in medicine. Born in Lismore,
Ireland to Richard Boyle, first earl of Cork, and Katherine Fenton, his second wife,
Boyle was the youngest son in a family of fourteen. However he was not shortchanged of
anything. After private tutoring at home for eight years, Robert Boyle was sent to Eton
College where he studied for four years. At the age of twelve, Boyle traveled to the
Continent, as it was referred to at the time. There he found a private tutor by the name
of Marcombes in Geneva. While traveling between Italy, France, and England, Boyle was
being tutored in the polite arts, philosophy, theology, mathematics, and science.
As the years went by, Boyle became more and more interested in medicine. His curiosity
in this field led him to chemistry. At first Boyle was mainly interested in the facet of
chemistry that dealt with the preparation of drugs, but soon he became genuinely
interested in the subject and started to study it in great detail. His studies led him
to Oxford where he joined such scientists as John Wilkins and John Wallis, and together
in 1660, they founded the Royal Society of London for the Advancement of Science.
From this point onwards, Boyle seriously undertook the reformation of science. For
centuries scientists had been explaining the unknown with the simple explanation that god
made it that way. Though Boyle did not argue with this, he did believe that there was a
scientific explanation for god's doings. Boyle's point of view can be seen by his
dealings with the elements. At this time it was thought that an element was not only the
simplest body to which something could be broken down, but also a necessary component of
all bodies. Meaning that if oil was an element, it would not be able to be broken down,
and it would be found in everything. Boyle did not accept this theory, whether it
referred to the earth, air, fire, and water of the Aristotelians, the salt, sulfur, and
mercury of the Paracelsans, or the phlegm, oil, spirit, acid, and alkali of later
chemists. He did not believe that these elements were truly fundamental in their nature.
Boyle thought that the only things common in all bodies were corpuscles, atom-like
structures that were created by god and that now occupy all void space. He began to
preform experiments, concentrating on the color changes that took place in reactions. He
started to devise a system of classification based on the properties of substances. By
showing that acids turned the blue syrup of violets red, Boyle claimed that all acids
react in the same manner with violet syrup and those that did not, were not acids.
Similarly, he showed that all alkalies turned the syrup of violets green. Observing that
the blue opalescence of the yellow solution of lignum nephriticum was destroyed when the
solution was acidified and could be restored by the addition of alkali, Boyle used this
experiment to test the strength of acids and alkalies. His system therefore consisted of
three categories: acids, alkalies, and those substances that are neither acids nor
alkalies. However he purposefully avoided any investigation of corpuscles. Boyle
continued his work on acids and alkalies. He devised tests for the identification of
copper by the blue of its solutions, for silver by its ability to form silver chloride,
with its blackening over time, and for sulfur and many other mineral acids by their
distinctive reactions.
Therefore, knowing that it was not actually Boyle who discovered his law, but Towneley
and Power who did in 1662 and then Hooke who confirmed it soon thereafter, it can be said
that this was Boyle's greatest achievement. His achievement being the conversion of
scientific thought from one in which the spirits and the heavens were kept in mind at all
times, to one based on experimentation and the use of deduction, not assumption. It
cannot be stressed strongly enough what this did for science in general. Boyle's work
sparked the beginning of a new era, one in which careful experimentation was the
justification for a hypothesis, and thus he is accordingly bestowed with the honor of
being the founder of modern chemistry.
Boyle also did extensive work with the air pump, proving such things as the
impossibility for sound to be present in a vacuum, the necessity of air for fire and
life, and the permanent elasticity of air. Also using the air pump, Boyle discovered
that "fixed air" was present in all vegetables. Through other experimental methods,
mainly the use of steel filings and strong mineral acid, he also found hydrogen. Yet his
greatest achievement, apart from his influence on scientific thought, were his writings.
Boyle wrote about the connections of God with the physical universe. He wrote numerous
books on religious subjects, not all of which were related to science, but the most
influential being so. At his death in the December of 1691, Boyle left a sum of money
for the foundation of the Boyle lectures, a group of sermons that were intended for the
disputation of atheism. Robert Boyle opened the way for future scientists, changing
their methods of experimentation, thought, and outlook on chemistry as a whole, forever.
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