Robert Boyle was a well known scientist. His teachings and discoveries are still recognized and used by scientists today. Boyle was born in 1627 at Lismore Castle. Boyle was the youngest of his siblings, and his father, Richard, was the Earl of Cork, and was also one of the most powerful and rich men in Britain at the time.
It has been said that Boyle, who has been dubbed by some the ‘Father of Modern Chemistry’, is the most important scientist ever born in Ireland. It has also been argued that Boyle might be the one person from Ireland with the greatest impact on the course of human history. In 1655 Boyle moved to Oxford. Around this time, he employed a man named Robert Hooke to help him with his tests and experiments. They would soon build the air-pump that the pair used in many of Boyles most important experiments, including the proving the necessity of air for combustion, animal breathing, and also for the transmission of sound. Boyle is also known for proving the inverse relationship between the volume of a gas and its pressure, which can be found in science textbooks across all parts of the world. This discovery is known today as Boyle’s Law. Boyle discovered that doubling the pressure on a certain amount of gas at constant temperature will reduce its volume by one-half. tripling the pressure on the gas reduces its volume by one-third. He also noticed that reducing the pressure by one half makes the volume double in the sample of gas.
Besides being a well known scientist and son of a wealthy man, Robert was a talented and well known writer on subjects like philosophy, theology, and the new science. His well known writings include ‘New Experiments Physio-Mechanical, Touching the Spring of the Air and its Effects (1660) and also his most famous writing- The Sceptical Chymist (1661). Boyles Law first appears in writing in the 2nd edition of ‘New Experiments Physio-Mechanical, Touching the Spring of the Air and its Effect’. In 1662, Boyle insisted that...